Friday the 13th Origins

Today is Friday the 13th, which is thought to be an unlucky day in Western civilization.  R&J News’ Joe Lancello looked up the reasons why.

Superstition about Friday the 13th goes back centuries.  According to a Norse myth, there were 12 gods having a party in Valhalla.  The trickster god Loki, who wasn’t invited, arrived as the 13th guest and arranged for one god to shoot Balder, the god of joy and gladness, with an arrow.  Balder died, which triggered great suffering around the world.  According to biblical tradition, it’s believed that the seating arrangement from the Last Supper led to the belief that having 13 guests at a table was courting death.  Another Christian legend claims 13 is unholy because it signifies a meeting of 12 witches and the devil. There was also a popular novel published in 1907 called “Friday, the 13th” where an unscrupulous broker took advantage of the superstition to cause a Wall Street panic on a Friday the 13th.  And there’s a French play from 1834 where a character says “I was born on a Friday, December 13, 1813, from which come all of my misfortunes.”  There are also more recent examples of Friday the 13th being a bad omen: the Germans bombed Buckingham Palace in September 1940 and rapper Tupac Shakur was killed in September 1996.