Friday the 13th – old wives’ tales or reality?

Don’t cut your hair or nails, don’t give birth today, don’t...

February 13, 2015

Louisa Korb 2 minutes read

Any month that begins on a Sunday will contain a Friday the 13th, and there is at least one Friday the 13th in every Gregorian calendar year.

This year has three Fridays the 13th: 13 February, 13 March and 13 November which will surely make believers in the curse of this day blind with anxiety!

The exact origin of this day as being unlucky, is not known, however there are many superstitions surrounding the number 13.

(By the way, the fear of this number has been given a scientific name, namely triskadekaphobia, and on analogy to the fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskevidekatriaphobia from the Greeg words Paraskeví meaning Friday and dekatreís meaning thirteen.)

Some of the theories surrounding the origin of the fear of Friday the 13th, include:

In numerology, the number 12 is considered the number of completeness, as reflected in the 12 months of the year, 12 numbers on the clock, the 12 dieties of Olympus, the 12 tribes of Isreal, jesus’s 12 disciples and the 12 signs of the Zosiac.In contrast, the number 13 is considered irregular, transgressing this completeness.
There is a superstition, thought by some to derive from the Lat Supper or a Norse myth that having 13 people seated at a table results in the death of one of the diners.
On Friday, 13 October 1307, hundreds of the Knights Templar were arrested in France, possibly giving rise to the fear of a curse on that day.
Friday is consider an unlucky day in some religions
- Muslims tout Friday as the day Allah created Adam.
- Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit on a Friday and later died on a Friday.
- Christians consider Friday as the day on which Christ was crucified by the Romans.