A - Z OF SUPERSTITIONS

[_Nuts_]

WEDDING SUPERSTITIONS



WEDDING DAY
Certain days of the week, and certain months of the year are better than others for a wedding.
Monday for health,
Tuesday for wealth,
Wednesday best of all,
Thursday for losses,
Friday for crosses,
Saturday for no luck at all
Married when the year is new, he'll be loving, kind & true,
When February birds do mate, You wed nor dread your fate.
If you wed when March winds blow, joy and sorrow both you'll know.
Marry in April when you can, Joy for Maiden & for Man.
Marry in the month of May, and you'll surely rue the day.
Marry when June roses grow, over land and sea you'll go.
Those who in July do wed, must labour for their daily bred.
Whoever wed in August be, many a change is sure to see
Marry in September's shrine, your living will be rich and fine.
If in October you do marry, love will come but riches tarry.
If you wed in bleak November, only joys will come, remember.
When December snows fall fast, marry and true love will last.

FOR A LUCKY BRIDE
Something old,
Something new,
Something borrowed,
Something blue,
And a lucky sixpence
In her shoe.
Married in White, you have chosen right
Married in Grey, you will go far away,
Married in Black, you will wish yourself back,
Married in Red, you will wish yourself dead,
Married in Green, ashamed to be seen,
Married in Blue, you will always be true,
Married in Pearl, you will live in a whirl,
Married in Yellow, ashamed of your fellow,
Married in Brown, you will live in the town,
Married in Pink, you spirit will sink.

WEDDING DAY
Good Omens:
seeing a rainbow
having the sun shine
meeting a black cat
meeting a chimney sweep

WEDDING DAY

Bad Omens:
a pig, hare, or lizard running across the road
seeing an open grave
meeting a nun or a monk foretell barrenness

OTHER BELIEFS
If the groom drops the wedding band during the ceremony, the marriage is doomed.
The new bride must enter her home by the main door, and must not trip or fall - hence the custom of carrying the bride over the threshold.
The spouse who goes to sleep first on the wedding day will be the first to die.

WEDDING CAKE
If a single woman sleeps with a piece of wedding cake under her pillow, she will dream of her future husband.

[_Nuts_]

WEDDING SUPERSTITIONS



WEDDING DAY
Certain days of the week, and certain months of the year are better than others for a wedding.
Monday for health,
Tuesday for wealth,
Wednesday best of all,
Thursday for losses,
Friday for crosses,
Saturday for no luck at all
Married when the year is new, he'll be loving, kind & true,
When February birds do mate, You wed nor dread your fate.
If you wed when March winds blow, joy and sorrow both you'll know.
Marry in April when you can, Joy for Maiden & for Man.
Marry in the month of May, and you'll surely rue the day.
Marry when June roses grow, over land and sea you'll go.
Those who in July do wed, must labour for their daily bred.
Whoever wed in August be, many a change is sure to see
Marry in September's shrine, your living will be rich and fine.
If in October you do marry, love will come but riches tarry.
If you wed in bleak November, only joys will come, remember.
When December snows fall fast, marry and true love will last.

FOR A LUCKY BRIDE
Something old,
Something new,
Something borrowed,
Something blue,
And a lucky sixpence
In her shoe.
Married in White, you have chosen right
Married in Grey, you will go far away,
Married in Black, you will wish yourself back,
Married in Red, you will wish yourself dead,
Married in Green, ashamed to be seen,
Married in Blue, you will always be true,
Married in Pearl, you will live in a whirl,
Married in Yellow, ashamed of your fellow,
Married in Brown, you will live in the town,
Married in Pink, you spirit will sink.

WEDDING DAY
Good Omens:
seeing a rainbow
having the sun shine
meeting a black cat
meeting a chimney sweep

WEDDING DAY

Bad Omens:
a pig, hare, or lizard running across the road
seeing an open grave
meeting a nun or a monk foretell barrenness

OTHER BELIEFS
If the groom drops the wedding band during the ceremony, the marriage is doomed.
The new bride must enter her home by the main door, and must not trip or fall - hence the custom of carrying the bride over the threshold.
The spouse who goes to sleep first on the wedding day will be the first to die.

WEDDING CAKE
If a single woman sleeps with a piece of wedding cake under her pillow, she will dream of her future husband.

[_Nuts_]

DEATH SUPERSTITION

BIRD
A bird in the house is a sign of a death.
If a robin flies into a room through a window, death will shortly follow.

CANDLE
Light candles on the night after November 1. One for each deceased relative should be placed in the window in the room where death occurred.

CEMETERY
You must hold your breath while going past a cemetery or you will breathe in the spirit of someone who has recently died.

CLOCK
If a clock which has not been working suddenly chimes, there will be a death in the family.
You will have bad luck if you do not stop the clock in the room where someone dies.

CORPSE
If a woman is buried in black, she will return to haunt the family.
If a dead person's eyes are left open, he'll find someone to take with him.
Mirrors in a house with a corpse should be covered or the person who sees himself will die next.

DOG
Dogs howling in the dark of night,
Howl for death before daylight.

DREAMS
If you dream of death it's a sign of a birth, if you dream of birth, it's a sign of death.
If you touch a loved one who has died, you won't have dreams about them

DYING
A person who dies on Good Friday will go right to heaven.
A person who dies at midnight on Christmas Eve will go straight to heaven because the gates of heaven are open at that time.
All windows should be opened at the moment of death so that the soul can leave.
The soul of a dying person can't escape the body and go to heaven if any locks are locked in the house.

EYE
If the left eye twitches there will soon be a death in the family.
If a dead person's eyes are left open, he'll find someone to take with him.

FUNERAL
Funerals on Friday portend another death in the family during the year.
It's bad luck to count the cars in a funeral cortege.
It's bad luck to meet a funeral procession head on.
Thunder following a funeral means that the dead person's soul has reached heaven.
Nothing new should be worn to a funeral, especially new shoes.
Pointing at a funeral procession will cause you to die within the month
Pregnant women should not attend funerals.

GRAVE
If the person buried lived a good life, flowers will grow on the grave. If the person was evil, weeds will grow.

MIRROR
If a mirror in the house falls and breaks by itself, someone in the house will die soon.

MOTH
A white moth inside the house or trying to enter the house means death.

PHOTOGRAPH
If 3 people are photographed together, the one in the middle will die first.

THIRTEEN
If 13 people sit down at a table to eat, one of them will die before the year is over.

UMBRELLA
Dropping an umbrella on the floor means that there will be a murder in the house.

[_Nuts_]

DEATH SUPERSTITION

BIRD
A bird in the house is a sign of a death.
If a robin flies into a room through a window, death will shortly follow.

CANDLE
Light candles on the night after November 1. One for each deceased relative should be placed in the window in the room where death occurred.

CEMETERY
You must hold your breath while going past a cemetery or you will breathe in the spirit of someone who has recently died.

CLOCK
If a clock which has not been working suddenly chimes, there will be a death in the family.
You will have bad luck if you do not stop the clock in the room where someone dies.

CORPSE
If a woman is buried in black, she will return to haunt the family.
If a dead person's eyes are left open, he'll find someone to take with him.
Mirrors in a house with a corpse should be covered or the person who sees himself will die next.

DOG
Dogs howling in the dark of night,
Howl for death before daylight.

DREAMS
If you dream of death it's a sign of a birth, if you dream of birth, it's a sign of death.
If you touch a loved one who has died, you won't have dreams about them

DYING
A person who dies on Good Friday will go right to heaven.
A person who dies at midnight on Christmas Eve will go straight to heaven because the gates of heaven are open at that time.
All windows should be opened at the moment of death so that the soul can leave.
The soul of a dying person can't escape the body and go to heaven if any locks are locked in the house.

EYE
If the left eye twitches there will soon be a death in the family.
If a dead person's eyes are left open, he'll find someone to take with him.

FUNERAL
Funerals on Friday portend another death in the family during the year.
It's bad luck to count the cars in a funeral cortege.
It's bad luck to meet a funeral procession head on.
Thunder following a funeral means that the dead person's soul has reached heaven.
Nothing new should be worn to a funeral, especially new shoes.
Pointing at a funeral procession will cause you to die within the month
Pregnant women should not attend funerals.

GRAVE
If the person buried lived a good life, flowers will grow on the grave. If the person was evil, weeds will grow.

MIRROR
If a mirror in the house falls and breaks by itself, someone in the house will die soon.

MOTH
A white moth inside the house or trying to enter the house means death.

PHOTOGRAPH
If 3 people are photographed together, the one in the middle will die first.

THIRTEEN
If 13 people sit down at a table to eat, one of them will die before the year is over.

UMBRELLA
Dropping an umbrella on the floor means that there will be a murder in the house.

[_Nuts_]

If you ask 13 people whether or not Friday the 13th is unlucky, 6 will say yes, 6 will say no, and one won't be sure...Just make sure you don't take this poll over dinner, lunch, or breakfast!

By David Emery

I have before me the abstract of a study published in the British Medical Journal in 1993, entitled "Is Friday the 13th Bad for Your Health?" With the aim of examining "the relation between health, behaviour, and superstition surrounding Friday 13th in the United Kingdom," its authors compared the ratios of traffic volume to vehicular accidents on two different days, Friday the 6th and Friday the 13th, over a period of years.

Surprisingly, they found that in the region sampled, while consistently fewer people chose to drive on Friday the 13th, the number of hospital admissions due to accidents was significantly higher than on normal Fridays. Their conclusion:

Friday 13th is unlucky for some. The risk of hospital admission as a result of a transport accident may be increased by as much as 52 percent. Staying at home is recommended.
Paraskevidekatriaphobics – those afflicted with a morbid, irrational fear of Friday the 13th – are no doubt pricking up their ears just now, buoyed by evidence that their fears may not be so irrational after all. However, it's unwise to take solace in a single scientific study (the only one of its kind, so far as I know), especially one so peculiar. I suspect it has more to teach us about human psychology than it does about any particular date on the calendar.

The superstitious coupling of Friday the 13th with calamity is very old in western culture. The sixth day of the week and the number 13 both have foreboding reputations dating from ancient folklore; their inevitable conjunction from one to three times a year portends more misfortune than some credulous minds can bear. Folklorists say it's probably the most widespread superstition in America (and no doubt other parts of the world, as well). Some people won't go to work on Friday the 13th. Some won't eat in restaurants. Many wouldn't think of setting a wedding on the date.

How many people at the turn of the millennium still suffer from this phobia? According to Dr. Donald Dossey, a therapist specializing in the treatment of phobias and credited with coining the term "paraskevidekatriaphobia," as many as 21 million do in the United States alone. If that's correct, something like eight percent of Americans are still in the grips of a very ancient superstition.

Exactly how ancient is difficult to say, because determining the origins of superstitions is an imprecise science at best. In fact, it's mostly guesswork.

It is said ... If 13 people sit down to dinner together, all will die within the year. The Turks so disliked the number 13 that it was practically expunged from their vocabulary (Brewer, 1894). Many cities do not have a 13th Street or a 13th Avenue. Many buildings don't have a 13th floor. If you have 13 letters in your name, you will have the devil's luck (Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Theodore Bundy and Albert De Salvo all have 13 letters in their names).

Oftentimes, explanations of the origins of folk beliefs come off sounding like fanciful folktales themselves.

It's said, for example, that fears surrounding the number 13 are as old as the act of counting. Primitive man had only his 10 fingers and two feet to represent units, so he could not count higher than 12. What lay beyond that – "13" – was an impenetrable, frightening mystery, thus a source of superstition.

...Which has a lovely, didactic ring to it, but one is left wondering: Did primitive man not have toes?

In any case, despite whatever terrors the numerical unknown held for their primitive forebears, ancient civilizations were not unanimous in their dread of 13. The Chinese regarded the number as lucky, historians say, as did Egyptians in the time of the pharaohs.

To the Egyptians, life was a quest for spiritual ascension which unfolded in stages – 12 in this life and a thirteenth beyond, thought to be the eternal afterlife. The number 13 therefore symbolized death – not in terms of dust and decay, but as a glorious and desirable transformation. Egyptian civilization perished, this explanation continues, but the symbolism of the number 13 lived on only to be corrupted by other cultures (the Romans, for example) and bound to a fear of death instead of a reverence for the afterlife. (In Tarot decks the "Death" card bears the number 13 but retains its original, positive meaning: transformation.)

Another explanation suggests the number 13 was purposely vilified by the priests of patriarchal religions because it represented femininity. Thirteen was revered in prehistoric goddess-worshipping cultures because it corresponded to the number of lunar (menstrual) cycles in a year (13 x 28 = 364 days). (The "Earth Mother of Laussel," a 27,000-year-old carving near the Lascaux caves in France, depicts a female figure holding a cresent-shaped horn bearing 13 notches.) As the solar calendar triumphed over the lunar with the rise of ancient civilization, so did the number 12 over the number 13.

One of the more concrete early taboos connected with the number 13 is said to have started with the Hindus, who believed (for reasons I haven't been able to ascertain) that it was always unlucky for 13 people to gather in one place – say, for dinner. Interestingly enough, exactly the same superstition has been attributed to the Vikings, though many scholars regard this and the accompanying mythological explanation as apocryphal. In any case, the story has been told as follows:

Twelve gods were invited to a banquet at Valhalla. Loki, the Evil One, god of mischief, had been excluded from the guest list but chose to crash the party, bringing the total to 13. True to form, Loki raised hell by inciting Hod, the blind god of winter, to attack Balder the Good, who happened to be a favorite of the gods. Hod took a spear of mistletoe offered by Loki and hurled it at Balder, killing him instantly. All of Valhalla grieved. And although one might take the moral of this story to be "Beware of uninvited guests bearing mistletoe," the Norse themselves supposedly concluded that 13 people at a dinner party is just plain bad luck.

As if to prove the point, the Bible tells us that there were exactly 13 present at the Last Supper. One of the guests – er, apostles – went on to betray Jesus Christ, setting the stage for the crucifixion.

Did I mention the crucifixion took place on a Friday?

It is said ... Never change your bed on Friday; it will bring bad dreams. Don't start a trip on Friday or you will have misfortune. If you cut your nails on Friday, you cut them for sorrow. Ships that set sail on a Friday will have bad luck – as in the tale of H.M.S. Friday ... One hundred years ago, the British government sought to debunk the widespread superstition among seamen that sailing on Friday was unlucky. A special ship was commissioned, to be named "H.M.S. Friday." They laid her keel on a Friday, launched her on a Friday, selected the crew on a Friday and put her in command of Captain Jim Friday. Finally, H.M.S. Friday embarked on her maiden voyage – on a Friday – and was never seen or heard from again.

You could say Friday's bad reputation in western culture goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. It was on a Friday, supposedly, that Eve tempted Adam with the forbidden fruit. Adam bit, as we all know, and they were both ejected from Paradise. Tradition also holds that the Great Flood began on a Friday; God tongue-tied the builders of the Tower of Babel on a Friday; the Temple of Solomon was destroyed on a Friday; and Friday was the day of the week on which Christ was crucified. Traditionally, it is a day of penance for Christians.

But some sources say the pall over the sixth day of the week predates Christianity. In Rome, Friday was execution day (later Hangman's Day in Britain). In other pagan cultures Friday was the sabbath, a day of worship. Those who indulged in secular or self-interested activities on that day could not expect to receive blessings from the gods – which may explain the lingering taboo on embarking on journeys or starting important projects on Fridays.

To complicate matters, these pagan associations were not lost on the early Church, which went to great lengths to suppress them. If Friday was a holy day for heathens, it must not be so for Christians – thus it became known in the Middle Ages as the "Witches' Sabbath" – and thereby hangs another tale.

Friday got its name from a Norse deity worshipped on the sixth day – either Frigg (goddess of marriage and fertility) or Freya (goddess of sex and fertility) or both, the two having been confused with one another over time. (The etymology of "Friday" is given both ways.) Frigg and/or Freya correspond to Venus, goddess of love of the Romans, who called the sixth day of the week "dies Veneris."

Friday was considered very lucky by pre-Christian Teutonic peoples – especially as a day to get married, because of its associations with love and fertility. All that changed when Christianity came along. The goddess of the sixth day – most likely Freya in this context, given that the cat was her sacred animal – was recast in folklore as a witch, and her day became associated with evil doings.

Many legends developed in that vein, but one is of particular interest. As the story goes, the witches of the north used to observe their sabbath by gathering in a cemetery in the dark of the moon. On one such occasion the witch-goddess, Freya herself, came down from her sanctuary in the mountaintops and appeared before the group of witches – who numbered 12 at the time – and gave them one of her cats, making it ever afterward a coven of 13.

Needless to say, all this truly happened – and it happened on a Friday – which is why, boys and girls, Friday the 13th is the unluckiest day of the year.

Postscript:

Though it's clear that superstitions associating both Fridays and the number 13 with misfortune date back to ancient times, some sources pinpoint the origin of the black spot on Friday the 13th in a specific historical event: the rounding up of the Knights Templar for torture and execution by King Philip IV of France on Friday, October 13 , 1307.

[_Nuts_]

If you ask 13 people whether or not Friday the 13th is unlucky, 6 will say yes, 6 will say no, and one won't be sure...Just make sure you don't take this poll over dinner, lunch, or breakfast!

By David Emery

I have before me the abstract of a study published in the British Medical Journal in 1993, entitled "Is Friday the 13th Bad for Your Health?" With the aim of examining "the relation between health, behaviour, and superstition surrounding Friday 13th in the United Kingdom," its authors compared the ratios of traffic volume to vehicular accidents on two different days, Friday the 6th and Friday the 13th, over a period of years.

Surprisingly, they found that in the region sampled, while consistently fewer people chose to drive on Friday the 13th, the number of hospital admissions due to accidents was significantly higher than on normal Fridays. Their conclusion:

Friday 13th is unlucky for some. The risk of hospital admission as a result of a transport accident may be increased by as much as 52 percent. Staying at home is recommended.
Paraskevidekatriaphobics – those afflicted with a morbid, irrational fear of Friday the 13th – are no doubt pricking up their ears just now, buoyed by evidence that their fears may not be so irrational after all. However, it's unwise to take solace in a single scientific study (the only one of its kind, so far as I know), especially one so peculiar. I suspect it has more to teach us about human psychology than it does about any particular date on the calendar.

The superstitious coupling of Friday the 13th with calamity is very old in western culture. The sixth day of the week and the number 13 both have foreboding reputations dating from ancient folklore; their inevitable conjunction from one to three times a year portends more misfortune than some credulous minds can bear. Folklorists say it's probably the most widespread superstition in America (and no doubt other parts of the world, as well). Some people won't go to work on Friday the 13th. Some won't eat in restaurants. Many wouldn't think of setting a wedding on the date.

How many people at the turn of the millennium still suffer from this phobia? According to Dr. Donald Dossey, a therapist specializing in the treatment of phobias and credited with coining the term "paraskevidekatriaphobia," as many as 21 million do in the United States alone. If that's correct, something like eight percent of Americans are still in the grips of a very ancient superstition.

Exactly how ancient is difficult to say, because determining the origins of superstitions is an imprecise science at best. In fact, it's mostly guesswork.

It is said ... If 13 people sit down to dinner together, all will die within the year. The Turks so disliked the number 13 that it was practically expunged from their vocabulary (Brewer, 1894). Many cities do not have a 13th Street or a 13th Avenue. Many buildings don't have a 13th floor. If you have 13 letters in your name, you will have the devil's luck (Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Theodore Bundy and Albert De Salvo all have 13 letters in their names).

Oftentimes, explanations of the origins of folk beliefs come off sounding like fanciful folktales themselves.

It's said, for example, that fears surrounding the number 13 are as old as the act of counting. Primitive man had only his 10 fingers and two feet to represent units, so he could not count higher than 12. What lay beyond that – "13" – was an impenetrable, frightening mystery, thus a source of superstition.

...Which has a lovely, didactic ring to it, but one is left wondering: Did primitive man not have toes?

In any case, despite whatever terrors the numerical unknown held for their primitive forebears, ancient civilizations were not unanimous in their dread of 13. The Chinese regarded the number as lucky, historians say, as did Egyptians in the time of the pharaohs.

To the Egyptians, life was a quest for spiritual ascension which unfolded in stages – 12 in this life and a thirteenth beyond, thought to be the eternal afterlife. The number 13 therefore symbolized death – not in terms of dust and decay, but as a glorious and desirable transformation. Egyptian civilization perished, this explanation continues, but the symbolism of the number 13 lived on only to be corrupted by other cultures (the Romans, for example) and bound to a fear of death instead of a reverence for the afterlife. (In Tarot decks the "Death" card bears the number 13 but retains its original, positive meaning: transformation.)

Another explanation suggests the number 13 was purposely vilified by the priests of patriarchal religions because it represented femininity. Thirteen was revered in prehistoric goddess-worshipping cultures because it corresponded to the number of lunar (menstrual) cycles in a year (13 x 28 = 364 days). (The "Earth Mother of Laussel," a 27,000-year-old carving near the Lascaux caves in France, depicts a female figure holding a cresent-shaped horn bearing 13 notches.) As the solar calendar triumphed over the lunar with the rise of ancient civilization, so did the number 12 over the number 13.

One of the more concrete early taboos connected with the number 13 is said to have started with the Hindus, who believed (for reasons I haven't been able to ascertain) that it was always unlucky for 13 people to gather in one place – say, for dinner. Interestingly enough, exactly the same superstition has been attributed to the Vikings, though many scholars regard this and the accompanying mythological explanation as apocryphal. In any case, the story has been told as follows:

Twelve gods were invited to a banquet at Valhalla. Loki, the Evil One, god of mischief, had been excluded from the guest list but chose to crash the party, bringing the total to 13. True to form, Loki raised hell by inciting Hod, the blind god of winter, to attack Balder the Good, who happened to be a favorite of the gods. Hod took a spear of mistletoe offered by Loki and hurled it at Balder, killing him instantly. All of Valhalla grieved. And although one might take the moral of this story to be "Beware of uninvited guests bearing mistletoe," the Norse themselves supposedly concluded that 13 people at a dinner party is just plain bad luck.

As if to prove the point, the Bible tells us that there were exactly 13 present at the Last Supper. One of the guests – er, apostles – went on to betray Jesus Christ, setting the stage for the crucifixion.

Did I mention the crucifixion took place on a Friday?

It is said ... Never change your bed on Friday; it will bring bad dreams. Don't start a trip on Friday or you will have misfortune. If you cut your nails on Friday, you cut them for sorrow. Ships that set sail on a Friday will have bad luck – as in the tale of H.M.S. Friday ... One hundred years ago, the British government sought to debunk the widespread superstition among seamen that sailing on Friday was unlucky. A special ship was commissioned, to be named "H.M.S. Friday." They laid her keel on a Friday, launched her on a Friday, selected the crew on a Friday and put her in command of Captain Jim Friday. Finally, H.M.S. Friday embarked on her maiden voyage – on a Friday – and was never seen or heard from again.

You could say Friday's bad reputation in western culture goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. It was on a Friday, supposedly, that Eve tempted Adam with the forbidden fruit. Adam bit, as we all know, and they were both ejected from Paradise. Tradition also holds that the Great Flood began on a Friday; God tongue-tied the builders of the Tower of Babel on a Friday; the Temple of Solomon was destroyed on a Friday; and Friday was the day of the week on which Christ was crucified. Traditionally, it is a day of penance for Christians.

But some sources say the pall over the sixth day of the week predates Christianity. In Rome, Friday was execution day (later Hangman's Day in Britain). In other pagan cultures Friday was the sabbath, a day of worship. Those who indulged in secular or self-interested activities on that day could not expect to receive blessings from the gods – which may explain the lingering taboo on embarking on journeys or starting important projects on Fridays.

To complicate matters, these pagan associations were not lost on the early Church, which went to great lengths to suppress them. If Friday was a holy day for heathens, it must not be so for Christians – thus it became known in the Middle Ages as the "Witches' Sabbath" – and thereby hangs another tale.

Friday got its name from a Norse deity worshipped on the sixth day – either Frigg (goddess of marriage and fertility) or Freya (goddess of sex and fertility) or both, the two having been confused with one another over time. (The etymology of "Friday" is given both ways.) Frigg and/or Freya correspond to Venus, goddess of love of the Romans, who called the sixth day of the week "dies Veneris."

Friday was considered very lucky by pre-Christian Teutonic peoples – especially as a day to get married, because of its associations with love and fertility. All that changed when Christianity came along. The goddess of the sixth day – most likely Freya in this context, given that the cat was her sacred animal – was recast in folklore as a witch, and her day became associated with evil doings.

Many legends developed in that vein, but one is of particular interest. As the story goes, the witches of the north used to observe their sabbath by gathering in a cemetery in the dark of the moon. On one such occasion the witch-goddess, Freya herself, came down from her sanctuary in the mountaintops and appeared before the group of witches – who numbered 12 at the time – and gave them one of her cats, making it ever afterward a coven of 13.

Needless to say, all this truly happened – and it happened on a Friday – which is why, boys and girls, Friday the 13th is the unluckiest day of the year.

Postscript:

Though it's clear that superstitions associating both Fridays and the number 13 with misfortune date back to ancient times, some sources pinpoint the origin of the black spot on Friday the 13th in a specific historical event: the rounding up of the Knights Templar for torture and execution by King Philip IV of France on Friday, October 13 , 1307.

[rainbowcraft]

bump bump bump

[SpiritWillow]

interesting reading thankyou