Happy Friday the 13th!

September 13, 2013

A couple of hours after Joey left for work this morning, I was (still) lying comfortably in bed when I received a text from him: "Happy Friday the 13th." He hadn't sent this message to be facetious abut what has become the most widespread superstition in the U.S. (the phobia, also known as paraskevidekatriaphobia, affects between 17 and 21 million Americans). He sent the message in honor of our wedding, which took place on a Friday the 13th- the 13th of August, 2010 to be exact, which also happened to be the only Friday the 13th that year. Next year there will only be one Friday the 13th- in June- though some years there might be as many as three Friday the 13ths (like in 2012).

You must once again excuse the history nerd in me but I decided to find out once and for all what all this Friday the 13th superstitious hype is about. You could easily find all this information with a quick Google search, but I will briefly highlight the key points to spare you the trouble. You're welcome.

Friday

Apparently the number 13 and Friday as the sixth day of the week have been independently unlucky since ancient times. Let's begin with Friday. The name Friday originates in Norse history with Frigg (or Freya), the goddess of marriage, sex, and fertility (quite fitting for the wedding day of choice, wouldn't you say?) Frigg's Day was celebrated by the Norse on the sixth day of the week and through time and language became known to us as Friday. The Romans associated Frigg (or Freya) with their Venus, goddess of love, and thus named the sixth day of the week in her honor (does Viernes sound familiar to you Spanish speakers?). So why, you may ask, is this so unlucky? When Christianity came along, so the story goes, Frigg (or Freya, whose sacred animal was a cat) was cast as a witch and from that point on her doings were said to be evil. In fact, early Christians even called Fridays the "Witches' Sabbath". In Pagan Rome Friday was execution day, while in Judeo-Christian tradition Christ was crucified on a Friday. All of this legend and history generated the idea that Friday is an unfavorable day.

Thirteen

Let's shift our attention now to the number 13. According to historical records that I didn't care to delve into, Christopher Columbus, Napoleon, and even Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt were fearful of the number 13. The number 13 was anciently a symbol of feminism, fertility, and life (the average number of menstrual cycles each year and the approximate number of annual cycles of the moon). Again, quite fitting for a wedding day! One of the earliest recorded legends suggesting the ominous nature of the number 13 comes, once again, from Norse myth. Something about Loki (remember the movie Thor?) barging into a party of 12 uninvited (thus making 13!). By the end of the story, Balder the god of joy and gladness is killed and the Earth becomes sad and dark. Thirteen guests also sat at the celebrated Last Supper. While the number 12 signifies completeness, 13 is just one too many. In fact, in the U.S. a 13th floor will not be found in 80 percent of highrises, most hotel rooms will have no room number 13, and many airports skip the 13th gate (all of this according to Donald Dossey, founder of the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, North Carolina).

Friday the 13th

So we must conclude that the combination of these two ill-fated elements portends an infinitely greater amount of misfortune and doom. And although no one can really trace back to the first convergence of these superstitions (the earliest documentations connecting Friday with the 13th only date back to the 19th century), the fact remains that an estimated $800 or $900 million in business is lost on Friday the 13th because some 8 percent of Americans refuse to pursue their normal business, travel, and leisure activities on this most unlucky of days. How unfortunate, then, that the 13th of the month is more likely to fall on a Friday than on any other day (something to do with the Gregorian 400-year cycle, which calculates that the 13th falls on a Friday 688 times in 400 years, followed closely by 687 times on a Sunday or Wednesday).
As for me, I look forward to this fortuitous synthesis of femininity, marriage, and life. I also look forward to the next Friday the 13th, which by chance happens to fall 13 weeks from today.