Intriguing Stories About Friday the 13th
In his Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things, Charles Panati opens his book with a discussion of various superstitions related to lucky objects such as horseshoes, rabbits’ feet, and four-leaf clovers. On the unlucky side of the ledger, he mentions things like black cats, broken mirrors, and spilled salt. But in this same section (which, curiously appears on page 13!!), he also discusses the mythological background to contemporary beliefs about Friday the 13th:
Friday is named for Frigga, the free-spirited goddess of love and fertility. When Norse and Germanic tribes converted to Christianity, Frigga was banished in shame to a mountaintop and labeled a witch. It was believed that every Friday, the spiteful goddess convened a meeting with eleven other witches, plus the devil—a gathering of thirteen—and plotted ill turns of fate for the coming week. For many centuries in Scandinavia, Friday was known as “Witches’ Sabbath.”1
Here in America, Thomas W. Lawson helped to popularize the superstition associated with this day after the publication of his 1907 book, Friday the Thirteenth.2 According to the description at Amazon, Lawson’s novel is about “a stock broker [who] picks Friday the Thirteenth as the day in which he will set about events that bring Wall Street to its knees.”3 After his book became a bestseller, “stock brokers around the world allegedly refused to trade on any Friday the 13th.”
According to Wikipedia, “The only seven-masted schooner ever built was named after Thomas W. Lawson.4 Lawson himself had invested heavily in the ship’s construction, but in a strange twist of fate, it was apparently “wrecked off the Isles of Scilly at 2:30 am GMT on Saturday, December 14, 1907, but to Lawson, at home in Boston, it was at that time still Friday the 13th.”
The famous Friday The 13th horror movie franchise, which kicked off back in 1980, also helped to increase the lore and superstition related to this “unlucky” day. Though I recall seeing the very first film in this series with friends back in my freshman year of high school, I was completely unaware of the fact that Kevin Bacon played the role of one of Jason’s helpless victims.5
Sometime around that same period (back in the early eighties) I recall looking at a calendar and seeing one particular day labeled “Good Friday.” Since I was raised in a secular Jewish home, I was never taught about the significance of this important day, so I simply assumed that Good Friday was basically the opposite of Friday the 13th. I recently related this to my pastor as we were texting back and forth about the possibility of meeting on Friday the 13th for coffee, and he wrote me back saying, “That’s amazing—and not entirely wrong!”
The best part of this story is that my pastor’s name happens to be “Jason.” I was soooo looking forward to having “coffee with Jason on Friday the 13th,” but unfortunately, I received another text from him indicating that he needed to reschedule. In the end, however, I suppose it’s “safer” this way. 😬
FOR FURTHER READING
The Significance of Golgotha (Where Was Jesus Crucified?), Shane Rosenthal
Passover, The Last Supper & The Day of Crucifixion, Shane Rosenthal
Sprinkled Nations & Speechless Kings, Shane Rosenthal
What is the Most Important Thing in the Bible? Shane Rosenthal
Outside the Gospels, What Can We Really Know About Jesus? Shane Rosenthal
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Charles Panati, Panati’s Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things (New York: Harper & Row, 1987). Curiously enough, this information is found on page 13!
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Friday_the_Thirteenth/aQg1AAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0
https://www.amazon.com/Friday-Thirteenth-Thomas-WIlliam-Lawson/dp/1386741507
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_W._Lawson_(businessman)
During this interview, Kevin Bacon is asked what it was like filming his iconic murder scene in the very first Friday the 13th movie:
