Friday the Thirteenth

Oh noes! Lock up your valuables; Friday the 13th is here!

Paraskevidekatriaphobia is the fear of Friday the 13th. The term "friggatriskaidekaphobia" can also be used, but it's less common.

The history of Friday the 13th is a relatively recent one. There has long existed a stigma about both the number thirteen and the day Friday, but only during the 20th Century did they combine to create the dreaded Friday the 13th.


Friday
But what's so bad about thirteen? Wait, who cares about thirteen? What's so bad about FRIDAY?! It's only the best day of the week! Why vilify the most looked-forward-to day of the entire week?

OK, this might be why it's considered unlucky.

In olden timey days (before the Monday through Friday work week), the Vikings pillaged lots of shit. When they weren't pillaging, they were coming up with lots of gods for lots of things, and also creating superstitions. One of their goddesses was named Frigga, and it is her name that we take inspiration for the word Friday.

"Oh," you say. "Frigga must have been the goddess of unluckiness and messing up the place. Right?" Wrong.

"Oh my god, is that guy over there naked?"

Frigga was the goddess of marriage and fertility (boioioing); essentially, the Norse version of Venus/Aphrodite. She was popular (probably because she put out), and the pre-Christians of the time considered Friday to be a very lucky day, especially for marriages. But when Christians came along and tried to convert the Vikings (and maybe convince them to stop pillaging), they recast Frigga as a witch and turned her lucky day into a day of badness. Frigga's favorite pet was a cat, and so the cat was recast as the witch's familiar. Well, Frigga got angry that all these lies were being told about her, and she decided, "They want a witch!? Fine! I'll give them a witch!" And she got bitchy.

According to Christian tradition, Jesus was crucified on a Friday, which is a pretty crappy way to begin the weekend, if you ask me.

Never change your bed on a Friday, or you'll have bad dreams.

Don't start a trip on Friday or it will suck.

If you cut your nails on Friday, you cut them for sorrow (whatever that means).

There is a British urban legend (read: untrue poppycock) that tells the tale of the HMS Friday, a ship that was supposed to be the British Navy's attempt at dispelling the "unlucky Friday" myth. Everything significant regarding its construction, crew makeup, and eventual launch, were all done on Fridays. It was launched on a Friday... and never heard from again!

Thirteen
The Norse enjoyed crazy superstition-making, and made them so well they've lasted for a couple thousand years. One of the superstitions that the Norse invented was the notion that if you sat down at a table where the total number of people equalled 13, one of those people would die. Jesus should have paid attention to crazy Norse superstitions.

The explanation for this superstition involved a story about a handful of the Norse gods. One day, Odin invited his buddies over for beers and a hearty game of Cranium (90's Edition).

He invited 11 other gods, which made the total number of gods in attendance 12. They were all at Odin's kitchen table, having a good time reminiscing about their hair in the 90's and oh-my-stars-what-were-we-thinking-wearing-parachute-pants,

Thor circa 1995.

when there was a knock at the door. Odin answered it, and the unpopular god, Loki, invited himself in. Now the number was 13, but Loki didn't seem to mind. He sat down at the table and added himself to a team (which totally messed up the scoring and balance of the whole game!), which included the blind god of winter, Hoder. Now, Hoder was normally an OK guy, but he had been faring quite badly at Cranium and was kind of annoyed already. Loki informed Hoder that the god of light, Balder, was cheating and forcing Hoder to lose, and also drawing rude pictures of him. Hoder got angry and pulled a spear made out of mistletoe out of his pocket and jammed it into Balder's face. Balder was super allergic to mistletoe, and he had a severe allergic reaction. Odin tried to use an Epi-pen on Balder, but it was too late. Balder had been killed by the mistletoe spear to the face. All of Valhalla mourned, and now we understand why Loki was unpopular.

"Thanks a lot, Loki! You ruined my goddamned party!"

The number thirteen was significant in Norse culture because thirteen was the number of months there were in their year (there are thirteen full moons in a year). They did a lot of stuff involving the number thirteen (except dinner parties, apparently).

But not everyone thinks Thirteen is unlucky. To the Chinese, thirteen is auspicious. The Ancient Egyptians equated thirteen with death, but not the icky smelly decaying kind of death. To them, thirteen symbolized the glorious transformation of a person in this life to their eternal form in the next life. They also sucked peoples' brains out of their noses and worshipped cats. So... yeah.

Friday the Thirteenth
So, why combine Friday and thirteen? The simple answer is: ionno. Nobody really does, but there are a few theories.

The first and most popular (due to The DaVinci Code) is the story of the Knights Templar. Long story short: the Knights were good bankers and King Phillip of France was in serious debt to them. Rather than paying the debt, he made up stories about how the Knights worship the devil and are a bunch of homos, got the Vatican to back him, and ordered all the Knights arrested (the order was issued on October 13, 1307). The arrested Knights were tortured for false confessions and then killed.

The guy in charge of the Knights was brought before a crowd to confess in public, but rather than confessing, he apologized to his fellow Knights for giving a false confession under torture, and then he recanted his confession and told King Phillip to suck it. Phillip had him burned, and his lasts words were something like, "I curse you and the Pope! You're both going to die before this year is out!" And they did.

There are various books that were written about Friday the Thirteenth. One in particular - Friday, the Thirteenth - was about the stock market going kamikaze on Friday the Thirteenth. This book was published in 1907, which was EXACTLY 600 years after the order given to arrest the Knights Templar. Coincidence?! Probably. But it was certainly what seemed to convince Americans that Friday the 13th was an unlucky day, as not a lot of people gave a crap about the day before the book became popular.

In reality, Friday the 13th probably came about because of simple math.

Friday (unlucky) + 13 (also unlucky) = Friday the 13th (unlucky squared)

I find it appropriate to end my piece on sucky stuff with math.