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Superstitions come to life on Friday the 13th
Friday the 13th has arrived for the third time in 2009, bringing with it fear and caution.
The sixth day of the week and the number 13 both have foreboding reputations said to date from ancient times.
Several theories have been proposed about the origin of the superstition. In numerology, the number 12 is considered the number of completeness, whereas the number 13 was considered irregular, transgressing this completeness.
Friday has been considered an unlucky day since the 14th century. Black Friday has been associated with the stock markets crashes and other disasters since the 1800s.
Between athletic and theater and day-to-day superstitions, a hypochondriac would have much to be afraid of today.
Don’t walk under a ladder, don’t let a black cat cross your path, don’t spill the salt, don’t say “Bloody Mary” in front of a mirror — and more. These types of superstitions are well known and soften avoided, sometimes even subconsciously.
There are some superstitions, though, that are specific to certain interests.
In softball, some of Head Coach Meadow McWhorter’s superstitions include handing “the game ball to our starting pitcher before each game and not stepping on the chalk lines.”
McWhorter said, “One year we had a 22-game (winning) streak and we wore the same uniforms for every game (washed, of course).”
Theater has its own set of superstitions. For example, the words “good luck” are rarely heard in the theater; instead, “Break a leg” is the preferred phrase.
Some other theater superstitions dictate that it is “very bad luck to wear peacock feathers onstage,” according to Daryl Harrison-Carson, theater technical director and instructor at MHCC. It is also considered good luck to have a cat living in the theater because they get rid of other pests, she said.
There are even superstitions specific to certain plays. For example, it is believed to be bad luck to say the name Macbeth “unless you are actually performing the show,” said Paul Navarro, interim MHCC artistic director.
According to Harrison-Carson, “The superstition around ‘Macbeth’ is that if you say the name inside the theater, it will bring bad luck.”
“If an actor speaks the name Macbeth in a theater, he or she is required to leave the theater building, spin around three times, spit, curse, and then knock to be allowed back in,” according to the Theater Superstitions page on Wikipedia.
Despite all the superstitions, there are fewer reports of accidents on Friday the 13th because of people being more cautious and also because more people tend to stay home on that day, according to The Dutch Center for Insurance Statistics and the British Medical Journal titles “Is Friday the 13th Bad for Your Health?”
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