Similar to seeing a black cat, breaking a mirror, or walking under a ladder, many people believe the day Friday the 13th brings bad luck. On average, Friday the 13th only occurs once every two hundred twelve days. We only had one in twenty twenty-two, and we just had the second one come up for twenty twenty-three just a few days ago. So why do people have this superstition? Although it is hard to pinpoint exactly where this belief grew from, the earliest suspicion of Friday the 13th originated from biblical traditions. Thirteen guests attended the last supper the night before Good Friday- the night of Jesus’s crucifixion, and the number thirteen is now believed to be an unlucky number of guests at a table. Along with Friday being the day Jesus was crucified, Friday also dates back to the day Eve gave Adam the fatal apple, and Cain killed his brother Abel. As you can tell, this date does not come without its horrific history, so this belief isn’t without reason.
Although the roots of Friday the Thirteenth originated from biblical traditions, the legend integrated into pop culture seems to be what sparked strong belief throughout the United States. In 1907, the captivating novel Friday, the Thirteenth by Thomas Lawson was published. The novel is a dark fable of Wall Street about a stockbroker playing on superstitions about the date Friday the Thirteenth to create chaos on Wall Street.
In 1980, the horror movie Friday the Thirteenth, featuring a masked killer named Jason Voorhees, was released and became the most well-known example of the superstition in pop culture history. The movie revolves around two camp counselors who are murdered in 1958, causing the camp to close. Multiple attempts to reopen the camp failed due to arson and contaminated waters until 1979, when the camp was set to reopen. On Friday the Thirteenth, each camp counselor hired to work is killed off one by one.
As the rare occurrence of the date Friday, the Thirteenth continues to capture the imagination of people around the world, it’s known that this superstition, rooted in biblical traditions, has evolved through the integration of it into pop culture through these two pieces. Whether this date is a source of trepidation or simply an interesting quirk in the calendar, it has been evolving for hundreds of years and still captures the attention of people today.
