Friday the 13th

[steveo1]

So, we just had a Friday the 13th. This day is supposedly unlucky. Does anyone know where this superstition comes from?

[yabob]

Wiki notes that it is of comparatively recent origin (13 has a long history as an unlucky number in some cultures, as does Friday as an unlucky day - specifically noting the combined “double whammy” is recent):

Friday the 13th | History

This is somewhat interesting:

One author, noting that references are all but nonexistent before 1907 but frequently seen thereafter, has argued that its popularity derives from the publication that year of Thomas W. Lawson’s popular novel Friday, the Thirteenth,[7] in which an unscrupulous broker takes advantage of the superstition to create a Wall Street panic on a Friday the 13th.

[Dr.Drake]

@yabob

Wiki notes that it is of comparatively recent origin (13 has a long history as an unlucky number in some cultures, as does Friday as an unlucky day - specifically noting the combined “double whammy” is recent):

Friday the 13th - Wikipedia

This is somewhat interesting:

Essentially correct, though that 1907 date is wrong: a few Friday the 13th references can be found going back into the latter 19th century. But yes, it’s unlucky Friday (because of the Crucifixion) + unlucky 13, deriving specifically from it being unlucky to have 13 seated at one table (because of the Last Supper). 13 in general was Christ + apostles, so it wasn’t in itself unlucky until comparatively recently.

[Tammi_Terrell]

We’ve now several non-English examples of a superstition involving Friday the 13th that date to the middle of the 19th century (and a little earlier). I expect there are earlier ones out there too. (Still, it’s a relatively new superstition, as superstitions go.)

@yabob

This is somewhat interesting:

One author, noting that references are all but nonexistent before 1907 but frequently seen thereafter, has argued that its popularity derives from the publication that year of Thomas W. Lawson’s popular novel Friday, the Thirteenth,[7] in which an unscrupulous broker takes advantage of the superstition to create a Wall Street panic on a Friday the 13th.

I think Lachenmeyer is stretching a bit. As Dr. Drake notes, it’s possible to find mentions of this superstition in newspapers and books printed in English that appeared before publication of Thomas W. Lawson’s Friday the Thirteenth. Lawson’s novel may have helped popularize a distrust of the day, but let’s not forget, for example, the earlier efforts of various “Thirteen Clubs” and the like focussed on eradicating superstitions involving Fridays and the number 13 in the general public. (These “celebrations” were sometimes held on Fridays the 13th.)

Interestingly, Lachenmeyer misses the boat, so to speak, because he fails to mention the wreck of the Thomas W. Lawson, the world’s first and last seven-masted schooner, on Friday, 13 December 1907. (It sank the following day.)

Newspapers of the day (e.g., The Baltimore Sun, 15 December 1907, p. 1) certainly made the connection:

By curious coincidence the wreck occured on “Friday, the 13th,” a date made memorable by the book of Thomas W. Lawson, of Boston, for whom the vessel was named and who, with his family, it is said, is largely interested in her in a financial sense.

[benbo1]

more basically, fear of 13 itself. Triskaidekaphobia - Wikipedia

[yahoogle]

I’ve never actually had anything bad or unlucky happen to me on a Friday the thirteenth. So for people alive today, it most often is not from experience. Culture should probably be blamed for people today believing in the unluckiness.