Hey, everybody.
I'm Cristen from "Stuff Mom Never Told You"
here to tell you why Friday the 13th is considered unlucky.
Because in North America and Europe,
a significant proportion of the population
behaves very strangely on Friday the 13th.
Some people won't fly in airplanes,
host parties, apply for jobs, get married,
or even start new projects.
In fact, in the United States, roughly 8% of the population
is afraid of Friday the 13th, which
is a condition known as-- say it with me--
paraskevidekatriaphobia.
That's right.
It's actually a combination of two separate fears.
We have fear of the number 13, called triskaidekaphobia,
and fear of Fridays, which is funny
because everybody's always working for the weekend,
or so I thought.
Anyway, the most familiar source of both of these phobias
is actually Christian theology.
13 is significant to Christians because it
is the number of people who were present at the Last Supper,
because you've got Jesus and his Twelve Apostles.
And Judas, the Apostle who betrayed Jesus,
was allegedly the 13th member of the party to arrive.
I think Judas was just being fashionable late, but you know.
Now Christians have traditionally
been wary of Fridays because they also
think that Jesus was crucified on a Friday.
Some theologians think that Adam and Eve
ate from the forbidden fruit on a Friday.
What's going on?
Why are all of the worst events in the Bible happening
on Friday, including the Great Flood?
Yeah, supposedly Noah and his Ark set sail on a Friday.
Is Friday God's least favorite day?
I'm starting to maybe think that it is.
Because of all this, in the past many Christians would never
began any new project or trip on a Friday for fear that
the endeavour would be doomed from the start.
Now sailors were particularly superstitious in this regard,
often refusing to ship out to sea on a Friday.
According to nautical legend, in the 18th century
the British Navy commissioned a ship called the HMS Friday
in order to quell this superstition.
The Navy selected the crew on a Friday.
They launched the ship on a Friday.
They even selected a man named James Friday as the ship's
captain.
And then one Friday morning the ship set sail.
But at bad luck would have it, it disappeared.
Some historians then also trace a Christian distrust of Friday
to the church's overall opposition to pagan religions,
because, did you know, Friday is named after Frigg,
the Norse goddess of love and sex
who sounds like a really fun lady
to invite to one of your weekend parties.
Now this strong female figure, these historians claimed,
posed a threat to the male dominated Christianity.
So to fight her influence, the Christian church
characterized her as a witch, vilifying the day after her.
This characterization may have also played
a part of the fear of the number 13, triskaidekaphobia.
Do you remember that word?
Yeah.
I did.
I can just now start to say it correctly.
It was said that Frigg would often
join a convent of witches, normally a group of 12,
bringing the total number to 13.
And a similar Christian tradition
holds that 13 is unholy because it signifies
the gathering of 12 witches and the devil.
What?
That's kind of cool.
Some trace the infamy of the number 13
also back to ancient Norse culture.
In Norse mythology, the beloved hero Baldr
was killed at a banquet by the malevolent god
Loki who crashed the party of, you guessed it, 12,
bringing the group to 13.
And this story plus the story of the Last Supper
led to one of the most entrenched connotations
of the number 13.
You should never sit down to a meal at a group of 13.
Another significant part of the Friday the 13th legend
is particularly bad.
And this was a Friday the 13th that
occurred in the Middle Ages.
On a Friday the 13th in 1306, King Philip of France
burned the revered Knights of Templar at the stake,
marking the day as an occasion of evil.
Now these days, some people come to fear Friday
the 13th because of misfortune they've
experienced on that day in the past.
So if you get in a car wreck on Friday the 13th
or lose your wallet on that day, then that superstition
is bound to stick with you.
If you think about it, terrible things, horrible things,
or just mundane things like spilling coffee on your lap,
losing your wallet, losing your cell phone, et cetera,
this stuff happens all of the time.
If you're looking for bad luck on Friday the 13th,
you'll probably find it.
Same thing with Saturday the 14th
or Sunday the 15th, bad luck is everywhere, people.
So why do we consider Friday the 13th unlucky?
Well, maybe just because we want to.
If you want to learn more about traditions, cultures,
and how our bodies work in this crazy modern world,
you should watch more BrainStuff videos.
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I promise.