Myth or Fact [Friday the 13th]

Last night I get to sleep late because of reading. I think I'm going to sleep at one past thirty in the morning. I'm used to sleep in the dark, so I turn off my lamp and go to my bed. When I'm looking at my bed, I see a shape of something, because it's dark, I can't be sure if my eyes are fooling me or there's something in my bed, or whatever. On top of that the book I read before going to sleep is a bit psychology-horror, so imagine my feeling when I see that lumpy dark shape in my bed.. *shiver*

So I just close my eyes, get up to my bed and use a blanket to cover my body up to my neck. In my minds eye I keep seeing scary thing looking down at me from beside my bed, and I'm trying my best to fall asleep. It's hard with this scary thought running around my head, and somehow it sprang to my head that today is Friday the 13th! Not that I believe superstition thing, and Friday the 13th is available at every month that start with Sunday. But scary thing is scary, and our mind is the scariest place to be when we think of scary things. I don't make any sense am I? Well, you know how it is, I'm sure.. :D

So, why does people think that Friday the 13th is sinister? Is there some kind of myth or maybe fact behind that?

Most of us would think of Jason when we heard Friday the 13th, you know, that loony-white-mask-and-machete-man, Jason Voorhees, who is the fictional mass murderer character in Friday the 13th series. In the series he's portrayed as the young son of camp cook-turned-murderer, a mentally disabled young boy with a deformed appearance. But even though this story is categorized as a horror film, there's no actual spirit or not-from-this-world thing that appear in the story, it's mainly about a mentally disturbed man who murder everyone in his sight, so he's not a ghost or something, and he's fictional!

Anyway, it's not Jason that makes Friday the 13th scary, so what is it? Let's see the origin of Friday the 13th.

Wikipedia says that:

According to folklorists, there is no written evidence for a "Friday the 13th" superstition before the 19th century.

The earliest known documented reference in English occurs in Henry Sutherland Edwards' 1869 biography of Gioachino Rossini, who died on a Friday 13th.

He [Rossini] was surrounded to the last by admiring friends; and if it be true that, like so many Italians, he regarded Fridays as an unlucky day and thirteen as an unlucky number, it is remarkable that on Friday 13th of November he passed away.
One theory states that it is a modern amalgamation of two older superstitions: that 13 is an unlucky number and that Friday is an unlucky day.

No one knows who started the Friday the 13th myth, but there's numerous theory around that. Have you heard about triskaidekaphobia? You may guess from the first word that it's have something to do with number 3, well, you're not wrong, it's the fear of the number 13. So there's a theory that the one who is afraid of Friday the 13th may have this triskaidekaphobia. And the one who have a fear for Friday the 13th have friggatriskaidekaphobia or paraskevidekatriaphobia. Whew, what a complicated name for a phobia, eh?

Most of European country considered 13 and Friday to be an unlucky number. This may be rooted from religious beliefs surrounding the 13th guest from the Last Supper, Judas Iscariot, the apostle that betrayed Jesus Christ. The crucifixion of Jesus Christ is on Friday, which was known as hangman's day. In numerology number 12 considered to be the number of divine organizational arrangement or chronological completeness, reflected in 12 month of a year, 12 hour of a clock, 12 Apostles of Jesus Christ, 12 successor of Muhammad in Shia Islam, 12 sign of zodiac, 12 years of the Buddhist cycle, etc. That's why the number 13 is an irregularities, there's also superstition derived form the Last Supper and the Norse Myth where having 13 people seated at a table results in death of one of the diners.

It's just like the number 4 that are considered unlucky in most of Eastern country, because in China the word 4 [sì 四] is similar to the word death [sǐ 死]. That's why you won't find floor number 4 in any hospital in Eastern, and in apartment that owned by Chinese people.

There's nothing sinister, scary or supernatural on Friday the 13th, only people belief makes them scary, just like when people scared of black cat, because they believe that it's the pet of a witch.

Happy Friday the 13th!!