My Cursed Birthday
It’s my birthday!
That’s right–I’m an October 13th baby and, naturally, I think it’s the perfect date: the colorful leaves, the subtle crispness to the air, the scent of all things pumpkin. I consider myself pretty doggone lucky to have been born at such a perfect time of year.
Except, of course, for those few years–like this one–where my birthday happens to fall on a Friday.
Friday, October 13.
Then, instead of cozy, happy, fall-inspired birthday wishes, I get to see the shake of heads and hear the rap of knuckles on wood: “A birthday on Friday the 13th? How unfortunate for you!”
*Sigh*
Even if my day ends up being wonderful (which it usually is), I still have to hear the superstitious comments and low-key melancholy of a world convinced there is something unwholesome about the date. (I won’t even go into the fact that my THIRTEENTH birthday fell on Friday the 13th–oooooh, boy, would that get some feedback).
So, naturally, it got me wondering: why is it, exactly, that so many hold to the belief that Friday the 13th is unlucky? Where did this idea come from? And why does it permeate our culture so thoroughly?
While the idea of Friday the 13th is a purely western one, the notion of an “unlucky” date is not. In Greece and Spanish-speaking countries, it is Tuesday the 13th that is considered a day of bad luck, while in Italy, it is Friday the 17th that is met with fear.
Like many superstitions that have evolved over time and across cultures, it is difficult to pinpoint the precise origins of Friday 13th. What we do know, though, is that both Friday and the number 13 have been regarded as unlucky in certain cultures throughout history. In the Christian tradition, for example, Jesus was crucified on a Friday. Friday was also said to be the day Eve gave Adam the fateful apple from the Tree of Knowledge, as well as the day Cain killed his brother, Abel. According to folklore historian Donald Dossey, the unlucky nature of the number 13 originated with a Norse myth about 12 gods having a dinner party in Valhalla. The trickster god Loki, who was not invited, arrived as the 13th guest and tricked the blind god Hodr into shooting his brother Balder, the god of light, joy and goodness, with a mistletoe-tipped arrow, killing him instantly. The whole earth went into mourning afterwards, shrouding the land in darkness. The number of guests at the Last Supper–13–added to the digit’s unlucky reputation. But while, historically, both Friday and the number 13 have been seen as ill-omened, there is no record of the date Friday the 13th being seen as anything but ordinary until the 19th century.
The first mention of what we all know as Friday the 13th comes from an 1834 French play written by Les Finesses des Gribouilles. In it, he writes: “I was born on a Friday, December 13th, 1813 from which come all of my misfortunes”
An early documented reference in English also occurs in H. S. Edwards’ biography of Gioachino Rossini, who died on Friday 13th of November 1868:
“Rossini was surrounded to the last by admiring friends; and if it be true that, like so many Italians, he regarded Fridays as an unlucky day and thirteen as an unlucky number, it is remarkable that on Friday 13th of November he passed away.”
However, it is widely believed that the superstition only came fully into the public’s conscience with the 1907 publication of the novel Friday, the Thirteenth written by Thomas William Lawson. The popular book told the story of a New York City stockbroker who plays on fears about the date to create chaos on Wall Street and make a killing on the market.
So…is that all there is to this supposedly cursed day? A few ancient, far-fetched beliefs strung together over centuries to eventually become fodder for a book that planted a fledgling superstition into the public’s collective mind? Is there any merit at all to this belief? Has anything bad every actually happened?
Well, yes and no.
According to history.com, “On Friday, October 13, 1307, officers of King Philip IV of France arrested hundreds of the Knights Templar, a powerful religious and military order formed in the 12th century for the defense of the Holy Land. Imprisoned on charges of various illegal behaviors (but really because the king wanted access to their financial resources), many Templars were later executed…In more recent times, a number of traumatic events have occurred on Friday the 13th, including the German bombing of Buckingham Palace (September 1940); the murder of Kitty Genovese in Queens, New York (March 1964); a cyclone that killed more than 300,000 people in Bangladesh (November 1970); the disappearance of a Chilean Air Force plane in the Andes (October 1972); the death of rapper Tupac Shakur (September 1996) and the crash of the Costa Concordia cruise ship off the coast of Italy, which killed 30 people (January 2012).”
When laid out as a series of facts, Friday the 13th does seem prone to bad luck. However, these events, however horrific, pale in comparison to any myriad of other events that have occurred at any other date on any other calendar. It’s highly unlikely that the date on which they took place had any bearing on the tragedy that unfolded.
Or did it?
