When Friday Met 13

“Forget it. I am so not going out tonight.”

“Um, hello? Friday night? Awesome party? The guy you’ve been dying to meet?”

“Yeah, but have you seen the calendar? The nifty little 1 in front of the 3?”

“Don’t tell me—”

But she did. My college roommate absolutely refused to go to the biggest party of the semester simply because it fell on the 13th of the month and a Friday. For her, that was reason enough to stay home, alone, where she was convinced nothing bad could happen.

Here we are again today, many years later, one of two times during 2013 when the 13th lands on a Friday. That means everywhere you turn, you’ll hear people talking about bad luck, ill omens, and warning you to be careful.

The superstition has a name, two of them actually. Upon mentioning this to my husband, he narrowed his eyes in that thinking way of his, then after only a few seconds rattled them off: friggatriskaidekaphobia (Frigga being the Norse goddess after whom Friday is named and triskaidekaphobia for fear of the number thirteen) and paraskevidekatriaphobia (Paraskevi and dekatreis being the Greek words for Friday and thirteen, attached to good ole phobia meaning fear). Yeah, I wanted to smack him. He’s not someone you want to oppose in Trivial Pursuit.

But why all the fear? What’s the deal with Friday the 13th, anyway? As a lover of All Things Freaky, I decided to do a little research!

Bad Friday

While I tend to be a big fan of Fridays, historically speaking the day has a pretty bad reputation. You could say it all started with Adam, Eve, and the fateful offer of an apple one afternoon. Yep, a Friday.

Then there was the Great Flood, which also began on a Friday. And the tongue-tying of the builders of the Tower of Babel. And the destruction of the Temple of Solomon. And, of course, we can’t leave Good Friday off the list of significant Fridays. In early Rome, Friday was execution day. During the Middle Ages, pagans considered Friday the most holy of days, prompting the Church to deem Fridays as the Witches Sabbath. Significantly more recently, we have the Black Friday stock market crash.

Over time, the legends began:

    Don’t change your linens on Friday. You’ll have bad dreams.
    Don’t begin a trip on Friday. You’ll encounter ill fortune.
    Don’t cut your nails on a Friday. Bad luck is sure to follow.
    Don’t get married on a Friday. You’re destined to a cat-and-dog life.
    Don’t start a job on Friday. It won’t last for long.

And finally: Don’t set sail on Friday. You’re journey is sure to be unfortunate. (There’s an elaborate story about a British government initiative to quell this fear, involving a ship, the H.M.S. Friday: they laid her keel on Friday; hired her crew on a Friday; including a man named Jim Friday as her captain; and yes, launched her on a Friday. She was never seen again. However, this appears to fall under the Urban Legend category!)

That brings us to the number thirteen.

The Devil’s Dozen

Have you ever stepped into a high-rise elevator and noticed there’s no button for the thirteenth floor?

That’s because the number thirteen has an even worse rap than Friday. According to numerology, the number twelve is that of completeness: twelve hours of the clock, twelve months of the year, twelve gods of Olympus, twelve tribes of Israel, twelve Apostles, twelve successors of Muhammad, etc. Add one, however, and you throw everything out of balance. How many were seated at the Last Supper? Yep, thirteen.

It’s not surprising, then, the number thirteen has its own cache of warnings:

If thirteen people sit down for a meal together, one of them is soon to die.
If you live on the thirteenth floor of a building, bad luck will follow. Hence, many buildings try to “cheat” by not labeling a floor thirteen.
If you live on the thirteenth street, misfortune awaits you. Accordingly, cities all over the world skip from twelve to fourteen when it comes to naming streets and avenues.
If you have thirteen letters in your name, you have the touch of the devil. To save you the research, I present: Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Theodore Bunch, and Albert De Salvo.
Oh, yeah: there are thirteen witches in a coven.

So now we’ve got Bad Friday and The Devil’s Dozen. Add them together and you get the worst of the worst, a Friday that falls on the 13th. Interestingly, however, this simply seems to be a case of Bad + Bad = VERY Bad. Mentions of this superstition (or anything terrible, freaky, or cataclysmic linked to this day) are rarely found prior to the 20th century. Dan Brown made a case in The DaVinci Code that dread of Friday the 13th stems from the 14th century arrest and subsequent massacre of hundreds of Knights Templar, but historians counter that this is a recent connection. And…to muddy the waters even more, in Greece and Spanish-speaking countries, instead of Friday, it’s Tuesday the 13th that’s considered an ill omen. For the Italians, it’s Friday the 17th.

What do you think? Is there something to Friday the 13th? Would you start a trip that day? A new job? Go on a first date?  Cut your nails? What’s YOUR biggest taboo?