For anyone who is even a little superstitious (and superstition sometimes feels more like an unavoidable burden than a conscious choice) the arrival of yet another Friday the 13th sends a little chill down the spine.
Yet whatever its psychological effects, Friday the 13th is not one of the ancient unlucky days. There used to be many days in the year, which varied according to region, when it was considered unlucky to do anything because it would inevitably end badly – Epiphany (6 January) in some parts of England, 29 December in others, and even St Martin’s Day (11 November). But these traditions were tied to a day in the calendar rather than a specific day of the week.
Since the 17th century, the number 13 has been regarded as unlucky
Sunday, of course, has always been an unlucky day for having fun – there are countless folktales about the devil carrying off people who played cards or dice, or went swimming or footballing on Sundays, especially if they did so when the rest of the parish was in church. But this was a taboo that clearly emerged from a Sabbatarian interpretation of the Ten Commandments rather than folklore.
Friday has a long history as an unlucky day. ‘And on a Friday fell all this mischance’, declares the Nun’s Priest in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, having described a sequence of unfortunate events. The unluckiness of Friday may also originate from religious taboos. In the Middle Ages, Friday was a day of penance, when flesh was not to be consumed. Good Friday was an especially unlucky day, particularly for washing – but, again, this was probably to do with religious taboos rather than the day of the week. The idea that a Friday that falls on the 13th day of the month is particularly unlucky is a recent arrival, first referenced in the magazine Notes and Queries in 1913.
Nevertheless, the invention of Friday the 13th makes a degree of folkloric sense. Since the 17th century, the number 13 has been regarded as unlucky – mainly for its negative biblical associations, for Judas betrayed Jesus while at a meal of 13 people. The idea that it was unlucky for 13 people to sit down at a table seems to have come first, along with the belief that a fourteenth guest should always be invited on the spur of the moment in order to avert this. Later, in the 19th century, came the avoidance of the number 13 in the numbering of hotel rooms and houses. Friday the 13th, therefore, is a piece of twentieth-century composite folklore that combines two traditions of infelicity that originally developed independently of one another – an unlucky number, and an unlucky day.
Like many modern inventions in folklore, however, Friday the 13th has developed its own origin legend that is part of the folklore itself. This is the oft-repeated story that Friday the 13th became unlucky because King Philippe IV of France ordered the arrest of the Knights Templar on Friday 13 October 1307. There is no evidence that this day was regarded as especially unlucky at the time, however, and even if the idea was passed down orally, it does not make a great deal of sense. The Knights Templar, as major landowners, enjoyed little popularity among ordinary people in medieval Europe. So there is no good reason for people to have thought the dissolution of the Templars was a particularly unfortunate event. And it was only in the 18th century that the Templars began to attract widespread historical interest, as well as the eccentric theories that have attended their memory ever since.
Folklore, however, has a tendency to thumb its nose at history. Historical basis be damned, Friday the 13th has quickly established itself as a vibrant superstition, even spilling over into cinematic horror. And folklore is, after all, the lore the folk actually observe – regardless of where it comes from. The superstitious aura of Friday the 13th now outshines that of any other unlucky days in the calendar – few now fear the devil carrying them off for Sunday recreations.
It seems when it comes to unlucky days, Friday the 13th conveniently meets all our needs.
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