Friday the 13e will take place twice this year, first in January and later in October. This combination of day and number has long been considered an accident.
Thirteen as an unlucky number seems to have its origin in two stories, one from the Norse tradition and the other from the Christian tradition.
The connection to Friday is a bit more recent, with the first references appearing in the 19e Century.
13 as an unlucky number
The Norse story is about the gathering of twelve gods for a feast in Valhalla. Loki arrives uninvited and becomes the 13e participant. Loki knows that Baldur, the favorite son of Frigg, Queen of Asgard, is invulnerable to any object that could harm him, except mistletoe. So he convinces Hoor, the blind son of Odin and Frigg, to shoot an arrow made of mistletoe at Baldor, mortally wounding him.
In Christian tradition, the unfortunate property of 13 is attributed to the total number of persons at the Last Supper, which included Jesus and the 12 apostles. The apostle Jude betrays Jesus. If it were not for him, the total number would have been twelve and Jesus would not have been betrayed.
Friday and 13 connect
In the 19e Century there was the first literary reference to the unfortunate nature of Friday the 13the in the 1834 play Les Finesses des Gribouilles where one of the characters says “I was born on Friday, December 13, 1813, from which all my misfortunes spring”. And in a 19e Century biography about Gioachino Rossini, who died on Friday the 13thewrote the biographer HS Edwards:
“Rossini was surrounded to the last by admiring friends; and if it is true that, like so many Italians, he regarded Friday as an unlucky day and thirteen as an unlucky number, it is remarkable that he died on Friday, November 13.”
Early 20e Century (1907 to be exact), there was a popular novel written by TW Lawson entitled Friday the 13ein which an amoral broker uses the superstition to create panic on Wall Street that same day, allowing the superstition to permeate modern popular culture.
Friday the 13e (Scary Movies)
More recently, there is a horror film series of the same name that started in 1980 and spawned seven more films from 1981 to 1989. There were three movies starring the title character Jason (but not titled Friday the 13th) in 1993, 2001 and 2003. The ninth movie titled Friday the 13th came out in 2009.
Friday the 13e Humour
While there are still plenty of concerns about the bad luck of Friday the 13the for many people there is also a lot of joking around that day as well as the horror movie character Jason. Enjoy some humor that takes the sting out of Friday the 13the.
