Paraskevidekatriaphobia: the fear of Friday the 13th.
Who are we to judge? Some of us are afraid of cantaloupes or crumpets. – NPR
Friday the 13th – the Nuts and Bolts
Friday the 13th is considered an unlucky day in Western superstition. It occurs when the 13th day of the month in the Gregorian calendar falls on a Friday, which happens at least once every year but can occur up to three times in the same year. For a month to have a Friday the 13th, the first day of the month must be a Sunday.
Unluckiness of 13 One source mentioned for the unlucky reputation of the number 13 is a Norse myth about twelve gods having a dinner party in Valhalla. The trickster god Loki, who was not invited, arrived as the thirteenth guest, and arranged for Höðr, the god of darkness, to shoot Balder, the god of joy and gladness, with a mistletoe-tipped arrow. Balder died, triggering much suffering in the world, which caused the number 13 to be considered unlucky.
Christian associations The superstition seems to relate to various things, like the story of Jesus’s Last Supper and crucifixion in which there were thirteen individuals present in the Upper Room on the thirteenth of Nisan Maundy Thursday, the night before his death on Good Friday.[
Distribution Each 400-year Gregorian solar cycle contains 146,097 days (with 97 leap days) or exactly 20,871 weeks. Each cycle contains the same pattern of days of the week and therefore the same pattern of Fridays that are on the 13th. The 13th day of the month is very slightly more likely to be a Friday than any other day of the week.
Distribution of the 13th day per weekday over 4,800 months (400 years)
Day of the week
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thur
Fri
Sat
Sun
Occurrences
685
685
687
684
688
684
687
On average, there is a Friday the 13th once every 212.35 days. Friday the 13ths occurs with an average frequency of 1.7218 per year or about 3477 since the year 1 CE.
According to the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, North Carolina, an estimated 17–21 million people in the United States are affected by Paraskevidekatriaphobia (fear of Friday the 13th), making it the most feared day and date in history. Some people are so paralyzed by fear that they avoid their normal routines in doing business, taking flights or even getting out of bed. It has been estimated that US$ 800–900 million is lost in business on this day.
Scenes from Valhalla on the fateful first Friday the 13th.
What About Friday?
Just so we’re all on the same page….
Friday is the day of the week between Thursday and Saturday. – Wikipedia
Etymology The name Friday comes from the Old English frīġedæġ, meaning the “day of Frig“, a result of an old convention associating the Germanic goddess Frigg with the Roman goddess Venus, with whom the day is associated in many different cultures.
Frigg spinning the clouds, by John Charles Dollman
Frigg is a goddess, one of the Æsir, in Germanic mythology. In Norse mythology, the source of most surviving information about her, she is associated with marriage, prophecy, clairvoyance and motherhood, and dwells in the wetland halls of Fensalir.
Frigg sits enthroned and facing the spear-wielding goddess Gná, flanked by two goddesses, one of whom (Fulla) carries her eski, a wooden box. Illustrated (1882) by Carl Emil Doepler.
The goddess Frigg and her husband, the god Odin, sit in Hliðskjálf and gaze into “all worlds” and make a wager as described in Grímnismál in an illustration by Lorenz Frølich, 1895
Origin of Frigg The connection with and possible earlier identification of the goddess Freyja with Frigg in the Proto-Germanic period is a matter of scholarly debate.
