Friday, January 13, 2006

Origins of Friday the 13th...


Beware of walking under ladders, and black cats crossing your path it’s Friday the 13th!!! No I’m not talking about those corny slasher flicks. I’m talking about the unluckiest day on our calendar. On occasion this blog makes an attempt to be entertaining, and educational all in one post. Today is one of those days. So as I toss some salt over my shoulder and reach for my lucky rabbit’s foot read up people and learn about the origins of Friday the 13th.

The fear of Friday the 13th is rooted in ancient, separate bad-luck associations with the number 13 and the day Friday. The initial fear of the number 13 goes back to a Norse myth 12 gods having a dinner party at Valhalla, their heaven. In walked the uninvited 13th guest, the mischievous Loki. Once there, Loki arranged for Hoder, the blind god of darkness, to shoot Balder the Beautiful, the god of joy and gladness, with a mistletoe-tipped arrow. Balder died; the earth was plunged into darkness and mourned. So just how did Friday get involved in this? I Blame it on the Christians ... in an attempt to free up time for church and prayer they took 2 separate phobias combined it into one by pointing out biblical references to 13 and Friday thus creating one megaphobia. What are those references you ask? Well here ya go…
1) Judas the apostle who betrayed Jesus, was the 13th guest to the Last Supper.
2) Jesus was crucified on a Friday.
3)‘Twas on a Friday when Eve tempted Adam with that damn apple. I still insist she was framed.
4)It was on a Friday the 13th that the inventor of sibling rivalry Cain killed his brother Abel.

Meanwhile, in ancient Rome they believed that witches reportedly gathered in groups of 12. The 13th was believed to be the devil. As a result of this superstition against the number 13, the number 12 is over worked and number 13 is forced to live in poverty on the fringes of society due to lack of employment. More than 80 percent of high-rises lack a 13th floor. Many airports skip the 13th gate. Hospitals and hotels regularly have no room number 13. On streets in Florence, Italy, the house between number 12 and 14 is addressed as 12 and a half. In France socialites known as the quatorziens (fourteeners) once made themselves available as 14th guests to keep a dinner party from an unlucky fate.

The number 13 and its’ lover Friday were once closely associated with capital punishment as well as the torture of protectors of Christianity. It was on a Friday the 13th way back in 1306, that King Philip of France arrested the revered Knights Templar and began torturing them, marking the occasion as a day of evil. The Knights Templar were a monastic military order formed at the end of the First Crusade with the mandate of protecting Christian pilgrims on route to the Holy Land. Never before had a group of secular knights banded together and taken the monastic vows. They were the first of the Warrior Monks and fought along side King Richard I (Richard The Lion Hearted) and other Crusaders in the battles for the Holy Lands.
In British tradition, Friday was the conventional day for public hangings, and there were supposedly 13 steps leading up to the noose. In comparison the number 12 has lead a charmed life, it can date whatever date of the week it wants and not cause panic. Numerologists consider 12 a "complete" number. There are 12 months in a year, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 tribes of Israel, and 12 apostles of Jesus.

There is also a school of thought that sexism is involved in the discrimination against the lovers 13 and Friday. Historians suggest the Christian distrust of Fridays is actually linked to the early Catholic Church's overall suppression of pagan religions and women. In the Roman calendar, Friday was devoted to Venus, the goddess of love. When Norsemen adapted the calendar, they named the day after Frigg, or Freya, Norse goddesses connected to love and sex. Both of these strong female figures once posed a threat to male-dominated Christianity, the theory goes, so the Christian church vilified the day named after. The number 13 could also have been considered pagan because there are 13 months in the pagan lunar calendar. The lunar calendar also corresponds to the human menstrual cycle, connecting the number to femininity. Damn chauvinistic bastards they always find a way to work mentrual cycles into things!

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