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13 Spooky 'Friday the 13th' Facts & Myths

friday13Friday the 13th, also known as “Black Friday,” is considered a spooky day by the majority of people in the Western world as it is permanently associated with dark legends, strong superstitions and bad luck. The notion of Friday the 13th being the unluckiest of the unlucky spread across the world reinforced by various myths and verisimilar events, some of which we will explore below.

Did you know that... 
  1. … the fear of Friday the 13th is called “paraskevidekatriaphobia,” from the Greek words Paraskeví (meaning “Friday”), and dekatreís (meaning “thirteen”)?
  2. … ancient Egyptians believed that humans went through twelve stages on earth, and the thirteenth one was the afterlife? To them 13 symbolized death, but not with dread and fear, but through a glorious transformation. The ancient Egyptians’ association gradually spread to other societies, provoking, though, lesser positive feelings and thoughts.
  3. … there are several folklore records that insist that when 13 people are seated together at a table, one will die within a year? The “13 at a table” superstition may have taken its origin from the most famous dinner in history, the so-called “Last Supper” in Jerusalem, wherein Jesus dined with his twelve disciples, among which there was Judas Iscariot (or the betrayer), and he died soon after.
  4. … according to some scholars, Friday the 13th coincides with Jesus Christ’s Crucification?
  5. … it was on a Friday that Eve tempted Adam with the forbidden fruit and they were both thrown out of Paradise, cursed to live in the present full of injustice and suffering world?
  6. … Abel was slain by his older brother Cain on a Friday (the 13th actually), Noah’s flood started on a Friday, God tongue-tied the builders of the Tower of Babel on a Friday, while the Temple of Solomon was destroyed on a Friday, as well?
  7. … Friday was execution day in ancient Rome?
  8. … the creepy day of Friday as was named after the Norse goddess of love Freya? During the Middle Ages, the representatives of the Catholic Church told people that Freya was a witch and Friday was the witch’s Sabbath?
  9. … around 1921, Anglo-Indian folklorist Margaret Alice Murray introduced people to the secrets of modern neopagan witchcraft, basically revealing that all witches across Europe used to meet in groups of thirteen which they called “covens”?
  10. .. on Friday, October 13, 1066, William of Normandy demanded Harold II of England to relinquish the English throne to him and when the second refused, the next day William took it by force?
  11. … on Friday, October 13, 1307 and under the rule of France’s King Philip IV, the Knights Templar were arrested charged with blasphemy, heresy, homosexual practices and various obscenities?
  12. … if you take your first and last names and count the number of letters and the total is 13, we dare to say that you may live a pretty troubled life. Lavinia Fisher, Albert DeSalvo, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Aileen Wuornos… These people were some of the most notorious serial killers in human history, and guess what?…..they all had 13-letter names. Spooky enough?
  13. … the Turks disliked so much the number 13 that they did not even hesitate to expunge the word from their vocabulary?

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