When it comes to bad luck, few superstitions are as prevalent in Western culture as that of Friday the 13th. Like a black cat crossing the road and breaking a mirror, the notion of a day that can bring bad luck is deeply ingrained - even if believers can't explain why.
There's even a name to describe the irrational fear of this date: paraskevidecatriaphobia, a specialized form of triskaidekaphobia, the fear of the number 13.
Although Friday the 13th may seem like a rare occurrence, our Gregorian calendar means that the 13th day of the month is slightly more likely to fall on a Friday than any other day of the week. However, this is not a universal superstition: in Greece and Spanish-speaking countries Tuesday the 13th is considered a day of bad luck, while in Italy Friday the 17th is greeted with fear.
Like many superstitions that have evolved over time and across cultures, it is difficult to pinpoint the exact origin of the fear of Friday the 13th. What we do know is that both Friday and the number 13 have been considered unlucky in some cultures throughout history. In his book The Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things, Charles Panatti traces the concept of cursed Friday to Norse mythology, when Loki, the god of mischief, breaks down the door of a banquet in Valhalla, bringing the number of gods present to 13. Deceived by Loki, the blind god Hodr was tricked into shooting his brother Balder, the god of light, joy and goodness, with a mistletoe-tipped arrow, killing him on the spot.
From Scandinavia, Pannati explains, the superstition spread southward throughout Europe, taking root in the Mediterranean at the beginning of the Christian era. It is here that the disturbing power of numbers is reinforced through the story of the Last Supper, which Jesus Christ and his disciples attend on Holy Thursday. The thirteenth and most famous guest, Judas Iscariot, is the disciple who betrays Jesus and leads to his crucifixion on Good Friday.
In the biblical tradition, the concept of unlucky Fridays extends even further back than the crucifixion: Friday is the day Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge; the day Cain killed his brother Abel; the day Solomon's temple was destroyed; and the day Noah's ark set sail during the Great Flood.
However, it wasn't until the 19th century that Friday the 13th became synonymous with misfortune: as Steve Rudd explains in The Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland, the combination of Friday and the number 13 was a Victorian invention. In 1907, the publication of Thomas W. Lawson's Friday the Thirteenth captured the imagination with its tale of an unscrupulous stockbroker who takes advantage of the superstitions surrounding the date to deliberately crash the stock market.
In the 1980s, a hockey-masked killer named Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th franchise secured his notoriety. Then came Dan Brown's 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code, which helped popularize the false claim that the superstition originated with the arrest of hundreds of members of the Knights Templar on Friday, October 13, 1307.
Given the many legends of doom, you could be forgiven for thinking that Friday the 13th was truly sinister. If we dig deeper, however, we find evidence that both Friday and the number 13 have long been considered harbingers of good fortune. In pagan times, for example, Friday was believed to be associated with the divine feminine. The first clue can actually be found in the name of the weekday Friday, which derives from Old English and means 'Frig's day'. Both queen of Asgard and powerful goddess of the sky in Norse mythology, Frig (also known as Friga) is associated with love, marriage and motherhood.
Frigga protects homes and families, maintains social order, and can knit fate as she knits clouds. She also possessed the art of prophecy and could bestow or withdraw fertility. On the other hand, Freyja, the goddess of love, fertility and war, with whom Friga has often been confused, was endowed with the power to cast spells, foretell the future and determine who would perish in battles, and was believed to ride a chariot pulled by two black cats. These goddesses were widely worshipped throughout Europe, and because of these associations Friday was considered a lucky day for marriage by the Norse and Teutons.
Meanwhile, the number 13 has long been considered significant in pre-Christian and goddess-worshipping cultures, as it is associated with the number of lunar and menstrual cycles that occur in a calendar year. Fertility was valued in pagan times, and works of art were often associated with menstruation, fertility and the phases of the moon.
As Christianity gained momentum in the Middle Ages, paganism was opposed to the new patriarchal faith. Not only did its leaders oppose the worship of multiple gods and goddesses, but the celebration of Friday, the number 13, and goddesses who invoked love, sex, fertility, magic, and pleasure were considered impious.
However, these deities were so revered that forcing people to give them up proved a real challenge. But the Christian authorities continued their campaign, declaring both the deities and the women who worshipped them to be witches.
"When the Norse and Germanic tribes converted to Christianity, Frigga was banished in shame to a mountaintop and declared a witch," Pannati writes. "It was believed that every Friday, the malevolent goddess convened a meeting with eleven other witches plus the devil - thirteen in all - and plotted the following week's evil twists of fate."
These days, of course, Friday the 13th still haunts the Western imagination. But with talk of the role misogyny has played in silencing powerful women throughout history now front and center, perhaps the narrative of this unfortunate date and its associated female deities will soon be rewritten. | BGNES
