Friday, May 13, 2005
Friday 13th!
Today is Friday the 13th of May. Friday the 13ths are generally considered very unlucky by superstitious people, and I realised I had absolutely no idea why. So I looked it up, and it turns out, that nobody really knows. There's various stories and legends associated with Friday being unlucky, or 13 being unlucky but no-one knows why together they're particularly unlucky.
It's considered very unlucky for 13 people to congregate for a dinner, and it is said that if they do, they will all die within the year. It seems possible that this myth came from the legend of Valhalla, where 12 gods were invited to a dinner, but Loki (the evil one) wasn't invited. He turned up anyway, and caused havoc by inciting the blind god to attack the favourite god Balder with some mistletoe (as you do). Balder died and it has since been unlucky to have 13 people to dinner. Interestingly, the bible picks up on this by having 13 disciples to the last supper, and the crucifixion taking place on a Friday.
Friday was probably considered unlucky as in pagan Rome executions used to be carried out. Also a post-pagan legend says that the witches of the north used to meet in cemetries when it was a new (or dark) moon, and for one meeting Freya, the Friday godess, came down from the mountains and gave the witches one of her cats, making their numbers up to 13 - the proper size of a witch's coven ever since.
The DaVinci Code puts forward an idea that Friday the 13th became unlucky due to the warrior monk arrests in 1307 (October 13th). But the problem is that there is no evidence that Friday the 13th was ever perceived as unlucky prior to the 19th century.
It seems that in all probability it came about simply because 13 is unlucky and Friday is unlucky, so Friday 13th is simply a particularly unlucky Friday.
As it goes, I don't believe in superstitions like this, so I'm probably going to get run over later.
It's considered very unlucky for 13 people to congregate for a dinner, and it is said that if they do, they will all die within the year. It seems possible that this myth came from the legend of Valhalla, where 12 gods were invited to a dinner, but Loki (the evil one) wasn't invited. He turned up anyway, and caused havoc by inciting the blind god to attack the favourite god Balder with some mistletoe (as you do). Balder died and it has since been unlucky to have 13 people to dinner. Interestingly, the bible picks up on this by having 13 disciples to the last supper, and the crucifixion taking place on a Friday.
Friday was probably considered unlucky as in pagan Rome executions used to be carried out. Also a post-pagan legend says that the witches of the north used to meet in cemetries when it was a new (or dark) moon, and for one meeting Freya, the Friday godess, came down from the mountains and gave the witches one of her cats, making their numbers up to 13 - the proper size of a witch's coven ever since.
The DaVinci Code puts forward an idea that Friday the 13th became unlucky due to the warrior monk arrests in 1307 (October 13th). But the problem is that there is no evidence that Friday the 13th was ever perceived as unlucky prior to the 19th century.
It seems that in all probability it came about simply because 13 is unlucky and Friday is unlucky, so Friday 13th is simply a particularly unlucky Friday.
As it goes, I don't believe in superstitions like this, so I'm probably going to get run over later.
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Well, it is a load of rubbish anyway. I used to think it stemmed from the horror film genre in the eighties, but I've since discovered people have been silly about friday the 13th for much longer.
I'm sure they said on 5 Live today what the origin of the thing was, but I can't remember. They sent one of their reporters to dungeons in Edinburgh castle where people were smashing mirrors and walking past black cats and things to prove superstitions were rubbish.
I'm sure they said on 5 Live today what the origin of the thing was, but I can't remember. They sent one of their reporters to dungeons in Edinburgh castle where people were smashing mirrors and walking past black cats and things to prove superstitions were rubbish.
Well, I didn't get run over, so, yes, it must be all rubbish, and I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks so.
It is all a bit silly. They even had it on the TV news as well, I think it was news 24. 'the news today: its Friday, and it's the 13th'.
I think maybe superstitions come from things that were common sense, but then got slightly changed over the years and lost their meaning and became nonsense, like smashing mirrors would be bad because of all the bits that would end up everywhere, which you would probably be still finding in seven years time, but then this whole idea that theres something spooky or supernatural behind it came about. Well, it's a theory anyway.
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I think maybe superstitions come from things that were common sense, but then got slightly changed over the years and lost their meaning and became nonsense, like smashing mirrors would be bad because of all the bits that would end up everywhere, which you would probably be still finding in seven years time, but then this whole idea that theres something spooky or supernatural behind it came about. Well, it's a theory anyway.
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