Also called paraskevidekatriaphobia, unlucky Friday, Black Friday (old sense)
Friday the 13th is the day many people in the English-speaking world consider unluckiest. It joins two older fears, of Fridays and of the number 13, and the combined belief only shows up in print in the late 1800s, despite popular stories about the Knights Templar.
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Take care: Fear of the date (paraskevidekatriaphobia) can be real anxiety; if it disrupts your life, a doctor or therapist can help. No charm replaces ordinary care when driving or traveling.
In Spanish- and Greek-speaking countries the unlucky day is Tuesday the 13th. A Spanish saying warns not to marry or set sail on a Tuesday.
Italians fear Friday the 17th instead, since the Roman numeral XVII can be rearranged to VIXI, 'I have lived', meaning I am dead. Some Italian buildings skip room 17.
Captain William Fowler started a dining club that first met on 13 September 1881, with 13 guests at a table, walking under ladders and spilling salt on purpose to mock superstition. Its records show the fear of Friday and of 13 were still separate ideas.
Fear of the number 13 and of Fridays are both old in Europe. Thirteen at a table was thought unlucky, often linked to the Last Supper, and Friday was the day of the Crucifixion and an ill day to start a journey. But the two do not appear joined until the 19th century. An early printed case is H. Sutherland Edwards' 1869 life of Gioachino Rossini, who died on Friday 13 November 1868 and is said to have regarded both the day and the number as unlucky.
In 1907 the Boston financier Thomas W. Lawson published a novel, Friday, the Thirteenth, about a broker who exploits the superstition to cause a Wall Street panic, and it helped spread the idea. The often-told link to the arrest of the Knights Templar on Friday 13 October 1307 is a modern claim with no evidence that anyone treated the date as cursed then. Horror films from 1980 onward made the day a pop-culture fixture.
In the United States a black cat crossing your path is usually called bad luck, but in Britain, Ireland, Scotland and Japan black cats are often lucky. The bad reputation grew from Europe's witch-hunt era, when cats were cast as familiars; the claim that Pope Gregory IX ordered black cats killed is a myth.
Knocking on wood, or touching wood in Britain, is a quick ritual done after praising your own luck or mentioning something you hope will continue, to keep from 'tempting fate'. Its origin is disputed: tree spirits and the Christian cross are popular theories, but folklorists find the custom recorded only from the 1800s.
Spilling salt is an old omen of bad luck or a quarrel. The customary remedy is to take a pinch of the spilled salt with your right hand and throw it over your left shoulder, where the Devil is said to wait, to blind him.
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