It is perhaps disappointing to traditionalist to learn that the superstition that Friday the Thirteenth is unlucky is not ancient at all. No verifiable instance of it can be found in any written form prior to the nineteenth century, and although superstitions are notoriously handed down in oral tradition, the idea that such a fear of Friday the Thirteenth pre-existed the nineteenth century is on weak grounds. Lots of people say it is because of something that happened on some Friday the Thirteenth in the past (the arrest of all the Knights Templar in France on Friday, October 13, 1307 is one popular suggestion), but there is no evidence that the date was considered unlucky in the centuries afterward until it shows up in the 1800s and with no explicit connection with the Templars. (The Templars, pious knights that they were, have become a major marketable source of foolishness in recent years following the success of Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code. Sorry, folks, but getting mentioned in a popular novel whose historical basis has been shown to be hogwash does not a fact make, no matter how many silly "documentaries" about it appear on cable.)
So, happy Friday the Thirteenth! Apparently it is just another hot day.
The title of this post, of course, is the term for "fear of Friday the thirteenth", in case you ever need to drop it into casual conversation.
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