Friday the 13th

Achey legs woke me up early this morning. After laying there for about a half hour I got up. Just one of those days. It was 2:56am.  What to do?  I logged onto the computer only to have it slammed in my face at that abnormal time of the day that it is

well, no wonder I was up.  Things like that tend to bother me subconsciously.  For want of anything better to do, I googled useless information in those wee hours.

Wiki told me that Friday the 13th occurs when the thirteenth day of a month falls on a Friday - well isn't that something.  Who woulda thought.  I did not know until about 4:00am today that triskaidekaphobia is an extreme fear of the day. I can neither pronounce it nor spell it and had to paste and copy to get it in here.

This will be the only one for the year 2010.  2009 had 9, the most you can have in one Gregorian calendar year.  Poor triskaidekaphobians in 2009!

Friday the 13th superstitions are rooted in ancient bad-luck associations with the number 13 and the day Friday.  The two unlucky entities ultimately combined to make one super unlucky day.

Donald Dossey, a folklore historian and author of Holiday Folklore, Phobias and Funossey traces the fear of the number 13—aka, triskaidekaphobia—to a Norse myth about 12 gods having a dinner party at Valhalla, Norse mythology's heaven. In walked the uninvited 13th guest, the mischievous god Loki. Once there, Loki arranged for Hoder, the blind god of darkness, to shoot Balder the Beautiful, the god of joy and gladness, with a mistletoe-tipped arrow. "Balder died, and the whole Earth got dark. The whole Earth mourned. It was a bad, unlucky day," Dossey said. I guess, especially for Balder.

Loki directing the blind Hodur's arrow in a 19th century sculpture

Of course,  there is the Last Supper with Judas being the 13th guest.  While I knew that Friday was the day that we believe Jesus was crucified, I did not know that some believe that Eve tempted Adam with the forbidden fruit on Friday or that it is believed that Cain slew Abel on Friday the 13th.

Then I had to look up how they think they really know what happened when and got so confused with Julian vs Gregorian vs Lunar calendars that I gave up.  Though I did figure out enough to understand that on February 24, 1582, Pope Gregory XIII (13th) by papal decree combined a reformation of the Julian Calendar and the Lunar Calendar used by the Church to form the Gregorian Calendar that we still use today. Continuity is a good thing. 

Numeroligists believe that 13 is not so good because it follows 12.  12 is a "complete" number.  Just think how many twelves there are.  12 apostles, 12 months, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 labors of Hercules and 12 eggs in a carton.  To quote Thomas Fernsler, Mathematician, University of Delaware  "in exceeding 12 by 1, 13 has to do with just being a little beyond completeness. The number becomes restless or squirmy."

Giulio Romano - The Gods of Olympus, trompe l'oeil ceiling from the Sala dei Giganti

Just imagine trying to fit 13 eggs in a carton.

A baker's dozen is 13, one more than a standard dozen.

The expression originated in 13th century England.

But I do happen to enjoy a baker's dozen no matter what it was packaged in, even if it is a squirmy1 number  more than the complete number 12.

I did know that a lot of high rises skip the 13th floor.  You go from 12 to 14.  I didn't know that in Florence, Italy they do not mark houses with the number 13.  It's 12, 12 1/2, and 14.
  

Let's have a reality check.  Does calling it something else make any difference? If you are on the 14th floor right above 12, you're still on the 13th floor and if you are standing in a house that has #12 on one side of you and #14 on the other side you are still standing in the 13th house. Right? Does bad or good luck really read numbers?   Triskaidekaphobians are superstitious not less than smart.

I had never read this before either but found it very  interesting that there seems to be 2 Norse myths about the beginnings of unlucky Friday the 13th.  "The actual origin of the superstition, though, appears also to be a tale in Norse mythology. 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." ~ Charles Panati, Panati's Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things, 1987

Frigga Spinning Clouds

I wonder if this became more well known if we'd have a bunch of little girls running around named Frigga.  Or maybe we do and I just don't know about them. I am a little socially isolated here on the Hill.  Isn't Frigga pretty spinning those clouds? Looks more like Glenda that that Green One.

Here in the USA in 1980, Friday the 13th took on a whole new meaning.

Of course the name Jason and hockey masks did too.  All because of  a  movie, the epitome of creepy, horror movies.  Actually it's an American Horror Franchise with tv shows, novels, bunches of liscensed merchandise and a series of  TWELVE movies.  A complete number without that squirmy other 1.  Bad Luck?  Not when you google Friday the 13th movie and you get more than 14,000,000 hits!  Will I offend anyone if I say I've never seen any of them.  The movies that is.

I like this gentleman's belief on luck.

Luck is a dividend of sweat.

The more you sweat, the luckier you get. ~ Ray Kroc

If that is the case we should have buckets of it around here this summer and I think I'd tend to litsen to him.  After all look at what he did with this and his brand of luck.