Friday the 13th

If you've looked at the calendar, you know that today is Friday, the Thirteenth. I don't believe in superstitions, but I find their history and folk culture interesting. Did you ever wonder how this day came to be thought of as unlucky? There's actually no evidence of it until the 1800's, but the background was formed much earlier.

Rossini

According to Chaucer in his Canterbury Tales, Friday was considered a bad day to start a trip or a new project since at least the 1400's. Another literary reference comes in 1869 from a biography by Henry Sutherland Edwards. He wrote about Rossini, who died on Friday, the 13th. Speaking of Rossini, Edwards writes, "He 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." So, apparently by this time, some saw both Fridays and the number 13 as unlucky. I guess putting the two together made a double whammy.

Some people have also tried to link Friday, the 13th, with Christ. They say there were 13 people at the Last Supper, 12 disciples and Jesus. Then, Jesus was crucified on the next day, which was a Friday. I guess if you're looking to find connections, it not hard to make them.

Thomas W. Lawson

Perhaps a better place to look is at Thomas W. Lawson's novel, Friday the Thirteenth, published in 1907. More modern examples are John J. Robinson's Born in Blood from 1989 and Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code from 2003. Of course, there have been movies also.

At one time, people often tried to avoid the number 13, and a few still do. For years, high-rise buildings would not number a floor, an apartment, or a room thirteen. Instead, the numbers would go from twelve to fourteen. Even recently, the Stress Management Center

 and Phobia Institute in Asheville, NC, says an estimated 17 - 21 million people in the U.S. profess a fear of Friday, the 13th, making it the most feared reoccurring day in history. I've always found it, like any other day, can be a great day with the right attitude.

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