Paraskevidekatriaphobia - from the Greek words paraskeví meaning ‘Friday’ and dekatreís, which means ‘thirteen’.
Surrounded by superstition and strange stories, it’s difficult to discover the true origins of Friday the 13th. As children we simply learn that this particular combination of dates should be approached with caution, even worry. Sort of like Mother’s Day when you know for a fact your dad doesn’t even know what time of year it is, never mind where any stores that sell scarves are.
In 1993, a study was published in the British Medical Journal entitled ‘Is Friday The Thirteenth Bad For Your Health’. After comparing the number of vehicle accidents that occurred on Friday the 13th and Friday the 6th over numerous years, the researchers found that although fewer people chose to drive on the 13th, many more patients were admitted to hospitals due to car accidents. In fact, there was up to a 52% increase in hospital admissions on the 13th each year.
Many hospitals, hotels and workplaces avoid labelling their 13th floor and instead skip straight to fourteen (because apparently we’re that dumb). It is said that if thirteen people eat dinner together one of them will die within a year, and those with thirteen letters in their name will be cursed with the devil’s luck. For example, Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Aileen Wuornos, Jeffrey Dammer, Albert DeSalvo, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and Theodore Bundy all had thirteen letters in their names. FYI, Siobhan Harmer has thirteen letters so I will now be including my middle name in everything.
But is there any evidence to support this superstition? Well, you better crack your knuckles and put on your reading spectacles because it’s list time:
Friday 13th October 1307 - Philip IV of France arrested hundreds of the Knight’s Templar, accusing them of various illegalities. Many members died during atrocious acts of torture performed by French officers.
Friday 13th July 1821 - Nathan Bedford Forrest was brought into this world. He later became the first Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard, and is blamed for the massacre of Fort Pillow.
Friday 13th January 1939 – Australia’s Victoria province is destroyed by a raging bushfire, which went on to kill 71 people. Known as the ‘Black Friday’ bushfires, the flames affected 75% of the state, destroying 1,300 buildings.
Friday 13th September 1940 – Five German bombs decimated the chapel at Buckingham Palace, almost killing King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. In a letter to her mother, Queen Elizabeth explains: “It all happened so quickly, that we had only time to look foolishly at each other, when the scream hurtled past us, and exploded with a tremendous crash in the quadrangle.”
Friday 13th March 1964 – Catherine Susan (Kitty) Genovese was stabbed to death in Queens without any help from over thirty neighbors who heard or saw the attack. This led to the sociological term ‘Genovese Syndrome’ otherwise known as ‘the bystander effect’.
Friday 13th November 1970 – One of the most destructive cyclones in history ripped it’s way through Bangladesh, killing 500,000 people.
Friday 13th October 1972 – When a Uruguayan plane carrying 45 passengers to Chile crashed in the Andes, fifteen passengers were killed instantly. Sixteen others were rescued two months later, however they had already turned to cannibalism in a desperate attempt to survive.
Friday 13th January 1989 – IBM computers throughout Britain were destroyed by a computer virus, which was described as a ‘new species’ at the time and deleted piles of irretrievable data.
Friday 13th October 1989 – Although we’ve experience an even more devastating financial collapse since, the 1989 crash was the most damaging at the time. Brokers were understandably shaken when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 190.58 points.
Friday 13th September 1996 – Celebrated rapper Tupac Shakur died due to injuries he received from a drive-by shooting six days earlier in Las Vegas.
Friday 13th August 2010 – In Suffolk, a 13-year-old boy was struck by lightning at exactly 13:13. A St. John Ambulance member told the Mirror: “Suddenly there was this huge crack of lightning really close to the seafront and really loud thunder. Seconds later we got a call someone had been hit. The boy was breathing and was conscious.” Luckily, the boy only suffered minor burns.
Friday 13th January 2012 – With more than 4,000 passengers and crew onboard, cruise ship Costa Concordia ran aground after leaving Civitavecchia, Italy. 32 people were killed during the incident, whilst many others were forced to cling to the exposed side of the cruise liner to avoid the water.
Friday 13th April 2029 – NASA predicts that we will have the closest encounter with an asteroid in modern history. Asteroid 99942 Apophis will be seen as a bright light in our sky, coming close enough for Earth’s gravitational pull to bend it’s orbit.
Needless to say, I’m beginning to feel a little like Jim Carrey in Number 23. That is, slightly deranged and confused by maths.
So, where and when in the actual frick frack did this superstition first appear?
Thirteen, Fables & Folklore
Due to it’s ancient origins, pinpointing the source is near impossible but we do have some theories. Many of these focus on the absolute perfection that is twelve rather than the homely nature of thirteen. Ancient Sumerians developed entire calendars based on the number twelve that we still use today. There are twelve months a year, twelve hours in each half of the day, clocks are sectioned into twelve. In religion, there are 12 Gods of Olympus, 12 Apostles of Jesus, 12 Tribes of Israel, 12 Descendants of Muhammad Imams: twelve is a go-getter. Thirteen on the other hand represents the unknown, the useless extra number hidden in the shadow of its younger brother.
This is probably why both Judas and Loki are portrayed as the thirteenth guests to arrive at dinner parties. Judas was the thirteenth guest to arrive at the Last Supper, and Loki upset the twelve Norse Gods already seated by bringing evil and turmoil to their meal. Mischievous devil.
However, in both China and Egypt thirteen was widely regarded as a lucky number. In Ancient Egyptian lore, thirteen represented the final stage of life: death and immortality. Though the Egyptians saw this as a wonderful, desirable transformation it’s quite possible that other cultures who were less chuffed about death twisted the number into something unlucky.
Thirteen & The Patriarchy
As Western civilisation developed, it’s believed that the men in power demonized the number thirteen as it represented femininity. Back when ancient cultures worshipped goddesses, the number thirteen was heavily linked to the thirteen lunar and menstrual cycles (13 x 28 = 364 days). For instance, there is a 27,000 year old carving of Earth Mother of Laussel in France with thirteen notches in her crescent-shaped horn. Eventually, the feminine lunar calendar was overwhelmed by the masculine solar calendar and twelve became the perfect number, as described above.
Friday, Friday Gonna Get Cursed On Friday
If the various writers of the Old and New Testament have anything in common, it’s their Garfield-esque hatred for Fridays. According to almost every article I read about Friday the 13th, Eve gave Adam a bite of the forbidden fruit (interestingly, never named as an apple in the Bible) and the two were immediately evicted from the Garden of Eden on a Friday. Apparently, The Great Flood also occurred on a Friday, The Tower of Babel incident happened on a Friday and the Temple of Solomon was demolished on a Friday. Strangely enough, I can find literally no definitive evidence that these events occurred on Friday. However, the New Testament and it’s good old source oral tradition does state that Jesus was crucified, you guessed it, on a Friday. Or a Thursday. Or a maybe a Wednesday.
Friday itself was named after the Norse Goddesses Frigg (wife of Oden, Goddess of marriage and fertility) or Freyja (Goddess of sex and fertility), both of whom correspond with the Roman Goddess Venus (Goddess of love) who was also worshipped on dies Veneris AKA Friday. Before Christianity and the patriarchy came along to smash up all things feminine, Friday was widely regarded as a lucky day particularly if you wanted to get married. When Christianity appeared though, they recast Frigga/Freyja - who was often depicted driving a chariot pulled by two cats - as a witch and Friday became a day of evil known as the Witches’ Sabbath. To this day friggatriskaidekaphobia is used as one of the numerous titles for the fear of Friday the 13th.
Conclusion
Overtime, it appears that the two unfortunate strands that are thirteen and Friday were woven together to form the unluckiest day of all: Friday the 13th. That is, if you were brought up in a somewhat Paraskevidekatriaphobic culture.
Although the history of Friday and the number thirteen leads many Westerners to believe they are unlucky, this is not the case around the rest of the world. It appears that most cultures have their own dreaded numbers, further proving that us humans are a superstitious lot. The Chinese believe the number four is unlucky as it sounds like “death”, whilst in Indian numerology 8 is the bringer of destruction. In Japanese, the number nine sounds like “torture” leading many hospitals to remove rooms and floors that fall under the number nine and Friday the 17th is regarded as an unlucky day in Italy as roman numerals XVII can be rearranged to say VIXI meaning ‘I have lived’.
As for the ‘bad luck’ that occurs on Friday the 13th, Dr Caroline Watt of the University of Edinburgh, believes that we may be creating it for ourselves.
“If people believe in the superstition of Friday the 13th then they believe they are in greater danger on that day,” Dr Watt told The Telegraph. “As a result they may be more anxious and distracted and this could lead to accidents. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is like telling someone they are cursed. If they believe they are then they will worry, their blood pressure will go up and they put themselves at risk.”
So, before you spend this entire Friday skirting along the walls waiting for something horrific to happen, remember: Friday the 13th is simply a superstition created by the Christian patriarchy in an attempt to demonise women and the worship of Goddesses. This Friday, attempt to abandon superstition and instead remember Frigg/Freyja and their chariot pulled by cats.