OUR ancestors, it seems, had a notion that things get Worse as every week wears on. As regards the day one marries for example, the forecast was:
"Monday for wealth,
Tuesday for health,
Wednesday the best day of all;
Thursday for crosses,
Friday for losses,
Saturday no luck at all".
There was a similar pattern - if you caught a chill: "Sneeze on Wednesday, you sneeze for a letter; sneeze on Thursday for something better; but sneeze on Friday you sneeze for sorrow."
And any feeling of euphoria towards the weekend could be tempting fate: "He that sings on Friday will weep on Sunday".
All these little sayings illustrate the bad repute of Friday. Moreover, since misfortune has cumulative tendencies, a Friday falling on a date that bears the unlucky number 13 must be a recipe for double trouble.
In the Christian tradition, Friday's unlucky reputation stems from its association with the Crucifixion. But many undesirable or ill fated biblical events are also said to have taken place on that day.
It was the day on which Adam was expelled from Paradise, the day of his repentance and the day of his death. And for all of us it will be the Day of Resurrection.
The origin of 13's discredit is said to lie in its connection with the death of the god Bandur in Norse mythology. Bandur, the god of light and coincidentally the son of the goddess Frigg after whom Friday is named, was unfortunate enough to be at a banquet in Valhalla with 11 others when his old enemy Loki, god of strife, gained entry through a subterfuge.
Once in, the 13th guest arranged the death of Bandur.
In the Christian tradition, on the other hand, the unlucky significance of 13 is said to be associated with the 13 participants at the Last Supper.
The combination of Friday and 13 is no less common on the calendar than that of any other day and date. Most years have either one or two Fridays on the 13th of a month, but the year to beware of is a leap year beginning on a Sunday, which delivers three: this happened in 1984, but (luckily) will not happen again until the year 2012.
In any event, on days such as today Murphy's Law becomes a force majeure; you may find, as Hamlet puts it, that "when sorrows come, they come not as single spies, but in battalions". Or as the poet Edward Young perceived the situation:
Woes cluster; rare are solitary woes
They love a train, they tread each others heels.