To-day is Friday 13, supposedly the unluckiest day. To increase awareness of the day, there are a lot of news in the press and other news channels today. Although I am familiar with this superstitious custom, I did not dwell on its origin until today.
After my brief google search, I browse the articles listed at the bottom and this what I found:
Barry Markovsky, a distinguished professor emeritus of sociology at the University of South Carolina, writes “Many Westerners alter their behaviors on Friday the 13th. Of course bad things do sometimes happen on that date, but there’s no evidence they do so disproportionately”.
The number 13 may be associated with some famous but undesirable dinner guests. In Norse mythology, the god Loki was 13th to arrive at a feast in Valhalla, where he tricked another attendee into killing the god Baldur. In Christianity, Judas — the apostle who betrayed Jesus — was the 13th guest at the Last Supper.
– Prof. Barry Markovsky in The Conversation magazine
Prof. Markovsky writes “In Japan, 9 is unlucky, probably because it sounds similar to the Japanese word for “suffering.” In Italy, it’s 17. In China, 4 sounds like “death” and is more actively avoided in everyday life than 13 is in Western culture – including a willingness to pay higher fees to avoid it in cellphone numbers. And though 666 is considered lucky in China, many Christians around the world associate it with an evil beast described in the biblical Book of Revelation. There is even a word for an intense fear of 666: hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia.”
According to BBC “Even today, it’s considered unlucky to have 13 people sitting at a dinner table, and some people pop a teddy bear in a seat to make the number of guests up to 14!”
CNN Style has published a very detail article by Christobel Hastings, profiling the Friday 13. “These days, of course, Friday the 13th still haunts the Western imagination. But with conversations around the role misogyny has played in silencing powerful women throughout history now in the mainstream, perhaps the narrative of this unlucky date and the female deities associated with it might soon be rewritten.”
“I was born on the 13th. I turned 13 on Friday the 13th. My first album went gold in 13 weeks. My first No. 1 one song had a 13-second intro. Every time I’ve won an award I’ve been seated in either the 13th seat, the 13th row, the 13th section or row M, which is the 13th letter. Basically, whenever a 13 comes up in my life, it’s a good thing.”
– Taylor Swift told MTV in 2009 (source: CNN)
More details about its history, alternate history and re-write reputation can be found on the CNN article.