Why is Friday the 13th considered unlucky? The origins of the superstition

The festive play is soon to beryllium interrupted by spooky play 1 past time, arsenic Friday the 13th falls successful December successful conscionable a mates of weeks. Often referred to arsenic the unluckiest time of the year, it volition look 1 past clip successful the 2024 calendar.

Friday the 13th has agelong been associated with atrocious luck and superstition, possibly 2nd lone aft Halloween. Spooky play is having 1 past hurrah successful 2024 connected Friday, December 13.

Often fodder for fearfulness films, the time is said to beryllium riddled with creepy goings-on and superstitious behaviour.

There are 12 slasher movies successful the Friday the 13th franchise, but it's up to you to decipher wherefore producers haven’t added anymore.

Yet it's not conscionable the worldly of Hollywood fable — hotels person often gone to large lengths to region “room 13s”, portion galore gangly buildings deficiency a 13th floor, and immoderate planes don't person a enactment 13.

But wherever does our superstition astir this peculiar date, known arsenic paraskevidekatriaphobia, travel from? And wherefore are we truthful acrophobic of the fig 13?

Here's each you request to know.

The fearfulness of Friday the 13th is truthful wide that it’s adjacent cheaper to question by level connected the date. But the superstition, recovered mostly successful Western culture, has been astir since agelong earlier aerial question was invented.

Thirteen is arguably the astir vilified number, and has countless malevolent origins.

The astir notorious quality of the fig 13 comes from the Bible. Judas, who betrayed Jesus, is thought to person been the 13th impermanent to beryllium down to the Last Supper.

It’s besides often the “death” paper successful a platform of tarot cards, and successful Norse mythology, a meal enactment of the gods was ruined by the 13th impermanent called Loki, who caused the satellite to beryllium plunged into darkness.

Friday doesn’t person a bully estimation either. Good Friday was the time of Jesus’s crucifixion and, successful the UK, Friday was erstwhile known arsenic Hangman's Day due to the fact that it was usually erstwhile radical who had been condemned to decease were hanged.

In Geoffrey Chaucer's celebrated Canterbury Tales, written successful the 14th century, helium says: "And connected a Friday fell each this mischance.”

According to folklorists, the operation of Friday and the fig 13 arsenic a time of peculiarly atrocious luck seems to beryllium a comparatively caller contented - possibly lone astir 100 years old.

A imaginable root of the superstition tin beryllium traced to the work of Thomas W Lawson's caller Friday, The Thirteenth successful 1907, successful which a broker takes vantage of the superstition to make a panic connected Wall Street.

One of the astir popularised myths attempting to explicate the root of the Friday 13 superstition stems from events connected Friday, October 13, 1307, erstwhile hundreds of Knights Templar were arrested and burned crossed France.

Many person linked the Knights Templar to the Holy Grail, and their brutal demise has often been utilized successful 20th-century literature, specified arsenic Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code.

The Eccentric Club, 1 of London's oldest gentleman's clubs, has held peculiar Friday the 13th dinners since the 18th century, seating 13 radical astatine a meal array surrounded by “unlucky” objects.

In 1993, a British Medical Journal survey claimed determination was a “significant” summation successful incidents connected Friday the 13th, but the writer of the survey aboriginal confessed it was “a spot of fun” arsenic accepted successful the Christmas edition.

There is anecdotal grounds that unlucky things volition hap connected Friday the 13th, however. In 1976, New Yorker Daz Baxter was seemingly truthful acrophobic of Friday the 13th that helium decided the safest spot to enactment was his bed.

Mr Baxter was killed erstwhile the level of his flat artifact collapsed that day.

Closer to home, successful 2009, the £13.5 cardinal SAW thrust astatine Thorpe Park had its opening premiere connected Friday 13th, lone to beryllium unopen down owed to a computer-programming fault.

While successful 2010, lightning struck a 13-year-old Suffolk lad connected Friday 13th astatine 13:13.

At slightest erstwhile a year, and up to 3 times a year. There was conscionable 1 Friday the 13th successful 2022 and 2 successful 2023.

In 2024, the day volition person occurred doubly — past month, successful October, and adjacent month, successful December.

Spooky stuff. But, for astir Brits, Friday the 13th volition beryllium conscionable different day.