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Friday the 13th
*Legend:* Friday the 13th is a day fraught with peril.
*Origins:* Although most of us would probably affirm that
superstition's role in Western culture is now a much diminished one,
more a source of amusement than anything else, there are still those who
allow their trepidation over particular days or dates to prevent them
from engaging in their choice of activities. We may make jokes about
Friday the 13th and only kiddingly instruct loved ones to exercise
greater care on that day, but those who suffer from a fear of the number
thirteen (triskaidekaphobia) or a fear of Friday the 13th
(paraskevidekatriaphobia) may genuinely feel limited by the rumored
potential for ill luck connected with the date.
The reasons why Friday came to be regarded as a day of bad luck have
been obscured by the mists of time ? some of the more common theories
link it to a significant event in Christian tradition said to have taken
place on Friday, such as the Crucifixion, Eve's offering the apple to
Adam in the Garden of Eden, the beginning of the Great Flood, or the
confusion at the Tower of Babel. Chaucer alluded to Friday as a day on
which bad things seemed to happen in the /Canterbury Tales/ as far back
as the late 14th century (/"And on a Friday fell all this mischance"/),
but references to Friday as a day connected with ill luck generally
start to show up in Western literature around the mid-17th century:
* /"Now Friday came, you old wives say, Of all the week's the
unluckiest day."/ (1656)
From the early 19th century onward, examples abound of Friday's being
considered a bad day for all sorts of ordinary tasks, from writing
letters to conducting business and receiving medical treatment:
* /"I knew another poor woman, who lost half her time in waiting for
lucky days, and made it a rule never to . . . write a letter on
business . . . on a Friday ? so her business was never done, and
her fortune suffered accordingly."/ (1804)
* /"There are still a few respectable tradesmen and merchants who
will not transact business, or be bled, or take physic, on a
Friday, because it is an unlucky day."/ (1831)
Friday was also said to be a particularly unlucky day on which to
undertake anything that represented a beginning or the start of a new
venture, thus we find references to all of the following activities as
endeavors best avoided on Fridays:
* *Needleworking*: /"I knew an old lady who, if she had nearly
completed a piece of needlework on a Thursday, would put it aside
unfinished, and set a few stitches in her next undertaking, that
she might not be obliged either to begin the new task on Friday or
to remain idle for a day."/ (1883)
* *Harvesting:* /"My father once decided to start harvest on a
Friday, and men went out on the Thursday evening, and, unpaid, cut
along one side of the first field with their scythes, in order to
dodge the malign fates which a Friday start would begin."/ (1933)
* *Laying the keel of, or launching, a ship*: /"Fisherman would have
great misgivings about laying the keel of a new boat on Friday, as
well as launching one on that day."/ (1885)
* *Beginning a sea voyage:* /"Sailors are many of them
superstitious . . . A voyage begun [on a Friday] is sure to be an
unfortunate one."/ (1823)
* *Beginning a journey:* /"I knew another poor woman, who . . .
made it a rule never to . . . set out on a journey on a Friday."/
(1804)
* *Giving birth:* /"A child born on a Friday is doomed to
misfortune."/ (1846)
* *Getting married:* /"As to Friday, a couple married on that day
are doomed to a cat-and-dog life."/ (1879)
* *Recovering from illness:* /"If you have been ill, don't get up
for the first time on a Friday."/ (1923)
* *Hearing news:* /"If you hear anything new on a Friday, it gives
you another wrinkle on your face, and adds a year to your age."/
(1883)
* *Moving:* /"Don't move on a Friday, or you won't stay there very
long."/ (1982)
* *Starting a new job:* /"Servants who go into their situations on
Friday, never go to stay."/ (1923)
In some cases, Good Friday (the Friday before Easter) was regarded as an
exception or 'antidote' to the bad luck usually associated with Friday
beginnings:
* / "Notwithstanding the prejudice against sailing on a Friday . . .
most of the pleasure-boats . . . make their first voyage for the
season on Good Friday."/ (1857)
* / "It was accounted unlucky for a child to be born on a Friday,
unless it happened to be Good Friday, when the event was
counterbalanced by the sanctity of the day."/ (1870)
The origins of the connection between the number thirteen and ill
fortune are similarly obscure. Many different sources for the
superstition surrounding the number thirteen have been posited, the most
common stemming from another Christian source, the Last Supper, at which
Judas Iscariot was said to have been the thirteenth guest to sit at the
table. (Judas later betrayed Jesus, leading to His crucifixion, and then
took his own life.) This Christian symbolism is reflected in early
Western references to thirteen as an omen of bad fortune, which
generally started to appear in the early 18th century and warned that
thirteen people sitting down to a meal together presaged that one of
them would die within the year:
* / "I have known, and now know, persons in genteel life who did,
and do, not sit down to table unmoved with twelve others. Our
notion is that one of the thirteen so partaking, will die ere the
expiry of the year."/ (1823)
* / "The old story runs, that the last individual of the thirteen
who takes a seat has the greatest chance of being the 'doomed
one'."/ (1839)
Superstition held that the victim would be the first person to rise from
the table (or the last one to be seated), leading to the remedies of
having all guests sit and stand at the same time, or seating one or more
guests at a separate table:
* / " . . . Miss Mellon always gave the last comer an equal chance
with the rest for life . . . she used to rise and say, 'I will not
have any friend of mine sit down as the thirteenth; you must all
rise, and we will then sit down again together.'"/ (1839)
* / "Every one knows that to sit down thirteen at a table is a most
unlucky omen, sure to be followed by the death of one of the party
within the year . . . Some say, however, that the evil will only
befall the first who leaves the table, and may be averted if the
whole company are careful to rise from their seats at the same
moment."/ (1883)
* / " . . . so far is this feeling carried that one of the thirteen
is requested to dine at a side table!"/ (1823)
(The "thirteen at the table" form of superstition again harkens back to
the Last Supper: the one who left the table first, Judas Iscariot, died
at his own hand soon afterwards.)
More generally, groups of thirteen people in any context ? at a table,
in a room, on a ship ? were believed to inevitably lead to tragedy:
* / "On a sudden an old woman unluckily observed there were thirteen
of us in company. This remark struck a panic terror into several
who were present . . . but a friend of mine, taking notice that
one of our female companions was big with child, affirmed there
were fourteen in the room . . ."/ (1711)
* / "Notwithstanding . . . opinions in favour of odd numbers, the
number thirteen is considered as extremely ominous; it being held
that, when thirteen persons meet in a room, one of them will die
within the year." (1787)/
* / "Many will not sail on a vessel when [thirteen] is the number of
persons on board; and it is believed that some fatal accident must
befall one of them." (1808)/
By the late 19th century the superstition surrounding thirteen had
become even more general, with people going out of their ways to avoid
anything designated by the number thirteen, whether it be hotel rooms,
desks, or cars:
* / "'Look at that,' said Parnell, pointing to the number on his
door. It was No. 13! 'What a room to give me!'" (1893)/
* / "For some time before the late War I went almost daily to the
British Museum reading room . . . I gave some attention to the
desks left to the last comers . . . there was a very marked
preference of any other desk to that numbered '13'." (1927)/
* / "The mechanic helped him get out [of the racing car]. 'May as
well scratch,' he said. 'He won't be good for anything more this
afternoon. It's asking for trouble having a No. 13.'" (1930)/
Once again these ill omens were avoided through artifice, such as the
renumbering of rooms in hotels and inns to eliminate any Room #13's, and
misnumbering the floors above the 12th floor in multi-story buildings so
that tenants could pretend 13th floors were really 14th floors.
Just as Friday was considered an inauspicious day of the week on which
to embark upon a new enterprise, so the 13th day of a month came to
signify a particularly bad day for beginning a venture. Although
regarding the confluence of a particularly unlucky day of the week
(Friday) and a particularly unlucky day of the month (the 13th) as a
date of supreme
unluckiness might seem to be obvious and inevitable, superstitions
regarding Friday the 13th are not nearly as old as most people tend to
think. The belief in Friday the 13th as a day on which Murphy's Law
reigns supreme and anything that can go wrong will go wrong appears to
be largely a 20th century phenomenon. (The claim that the Friday the
13th superstition began with the arrest of the final Grand Master of the
Knights Templar, Jacques Demolay, on Friday, October 13, 1307, is a
modern-day invention.)
Books of English folklore generally cite a 1913 /Notes & Queries/
reference as the earliest known expression of Friday the 13th as a day
of evil luck, and this corresponds to what we found when we searched
/The New York Times/ and the /Los Angeles Times/ for similar references.
In both newspapers the first mentions of the ill-fated date occured in
1908, as in this short piece about a U.S. senator from Oklahoma who
dared to tempt fate by introducing 13 bills on Friday the 13th:
*13 SIGN ON INDIAN SENATOR*
*Puts In 13 Bills on Friday the 13th and
There's Little Hope for them.*
WASHINGTON, March 13 ? Friday the 13th holds no terrors for Senator
Owen. The Senator from Oklahoma is a Cherokee Indian, and he places the
Indian sign on the ancient superstition.
To-day he introduced thirteen public building bills, and by a queer
coincidence the file numbers ran from 6,113 to 6,125, inclusive.
There is little likelihood that the public building bills at this
session will carry any but the most pressing improvements.
(It's interesting to note that this very early reference to Friday the
13th already describes it as being an "ancient superstition.")
Similarly, a 1913 piece described a minister who offered to marry free
of charge any couple willing to take the matrimonial plunge on Friday
the 13th:
*WED FREE FRIDAY THE 13TH*
*Pastor's Offer to Any Young Couple
Willing to Take the Chance.*
MIDDLETOWN, N.Y., June 10 ? Any young couple bent on matrimony may have
the ceremony performed free next Friday by applying to the Rev. Charles
H. Reynolds, pastor of the North Congregational Church.
Mr. Reynolds does not believe that Friday is unlucky, nor that Friday,
June 13, 1913, is unlucky, and therefore he offers to tie the knot free
of charge for any young couple who comes to him on that day.
These days, however, one is unlikely to get so much as a free latte out
of the day. Sanguinity comes at a price.
*Last updated:* 8 August 2007