Who is frightened of Friday the 13th?
Who is frightened of Friday the 13th?
By BILL DUNCAN
The View From Here
If the January calendar is correct, this Friday is Friday the 13th. That is when all the bad omens are supposed to crawl out from under the rock.
So knock on wood, toss spilled salt over your left shoulder, keep a horse chestnut in your pocket, don’t open an umbrella in the house,
avoid black cats, don’t walk under a ladder and if you are a girl, don’t whistle on Friday the thirteenth.
Why? According to superstition, that day is considered to be the unluckiest of all days, unless you happen to be born on the thirteenth of the month — then it is considered your luckiest day.
The origin of bad omens on a day of the month when Friday falls on the 13th are many and date back to ancient times. It is said that Eve tempted Adam on that Friday. Noah’s ark was supposedly launched on that Friday when the Great Flood came. It is even claimed that all the confusion at the Tower of Babel took place on Friday the 13th.
One omen comes from an early superstition that the devil and 12 witches roamed the earth on every Friday, thus 13 was considered unlucky, particularly Friday the 13th. The pathological fear of Friday the 13th even has a name, paraskevidekatriaphobia,. The fear is so strong, said a study of the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, N.C. that in the United States some $900 million is lost in business every Friday 13th because people will not travel on that day.
Another study by psychologists has found that people are likely to have accidents or fall ill on Friday the 13th because of a heightened state of anxiety on that day. In a questionnaire it was found that most Americans wouldn’t get married on Friday the 13th, start a new job on that day, buy a house on that day, fly on that day and if they do, refuse to sit in the thirteenth row. All of this while at the same time claiming they don’t put much stock in the superstition.
The superstition about the number 13 goes beyond Friday the 13th. It is said that at a dinner party when it is discovered that 13 people are seat at the table to avoid someone dying before the year’s up, all guest must join hands and stand up as one person to overcome the omen.
The thirteen superstition, however, must not count the printing of the dollar bill which has a pyramid with 13 steps, an eagle holding an olive branch with 13 leaves and 13 berries in one claw and 13 arrows in the other. The symbolism is for the 13 original colonies.
In the Chinese culture, 13 is considered lucky because there are 13 moons in a year. When a blue moon (actually an atmospheric condition causing the moon to look bluish) showed up as the 13th moon of the year, it was considered a good omen. It also led to a famous saying, "Once upon a blue moon."
There are many taboos about whistling. I remember early in my newspaper career it was said that if a reporter whistled in the editorial room a great misfortune would befall that whistler. I grew up in the Old South and there was a superstition for everything, and there was a saying that if a girl whistled she’d grow a beard.
It is said that a large number of the population suspects bad things happen on the 13th of the month when it falls on a Friday. If you can get through this Friday, you won’t have to worry until the next Friday, Oct. 13 and if you can hold out that date will only happen once in 2010, and not until August of that year.
(Bill Duncan can be reached, even on Friday the 13th, by writing to P.O. Box 812, Roseburg, OR 97470)