In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the first Friday after Easter is "Bright Friday", a date traditionally set aside for the blessing of gardens, writes Frank McNally
The practice celebrates the Virgin Mary as "life-giving fountain" and derives from a legend in which a future Byzantine emperor sought water for a dying man and heard the Virgin calling him from a spring-fed well. The site became a shrine near Istanbul.
In the Western unorthodox tradition, of course, today is just Friday the 13th and there's nothing bright about it. The risk of falling into wells, spring-fed or otherwise, is believed to be high; likewise the danger of lawnmower accidents. So never mind blessing gardens. Those of us with an aversion to horticulture have more than usual reason to avoid it - at least until tomorrow, when we'll have to think of a new excuse.
Friday the 13th has become the mother of all superstitions in these parts. The most rational of people may find themselves postponing projects today, if only because of concern about the influence the phobia might have on others. And yet, even by the standards of the genre, the date's reputation for bad luck is spurious. Most popular superstitions have ancient origins and survive into modern times only because the roots are so deep. But the supposed inauspiciousness of Friday the 13th is a modern invention.
The date's rise in Western folklore mirrors the reinvention of Halloween as a consumer event, except that it seems to have been spontaneous and, apart from a series of bad horror films, nobody has yet cashed in on it. It could well have been the work of a creative marketing mind, because Friday the 13th was essentially a merger of two separate but lesser superstitions - involving the day and the number - to create a super-superstition. But if it was a deliberate ploy, the genius responsible has never been identified.
When Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fablefirst appeared in the late 19th century, Friday the 13th as a combination did not merit mention. Then as now, it was noted that Fridays in general were considered unlucky by Christians, for obvious reasons. Sailors were particularly reluctant to go to sea on that day, the dictionary added - noting, however, that it was on a Friday in 1492 that Christopher Columbus set sail, and on a Friday that he first spotted land.
The reputation of the number 13 was more clear-cut, according to Brewer's. Specifically there was a dread of being among a group of 13 at a table - another echo of the Easter season - and women were particularly nervous about it. The dictionary quotes Joseph Addison, essayist and founder of the Spectator, recalling a night he had spent in mixed company that was "full of noise and mirth" until an old woman noted there were 13 people assembled: "This remark struck a panic terror into several who were present, inasmuch that one of two of the ladies were going to leave. . . but a friend of mine, taking notice that one of our female companions was big with child, affirmed there were 14 in the room, and that, instead of portending one of the company should die, it plainly forebode one of them should be born. Had not my friend found this expedient to break the omen, I question not but half the women in the company would have fallen sick."
One US academic has suggested that the number 13's general association with bad luck derives merely from its difficult role in having to follow the number 12. The latter was a "complete" number, he said. There were 12 months in the year, 12 zodiac signs, 12 gods on Mount Olympus, 12 apostles, 12 tribes of Israel, and so on. The number 13's troubled reputation, claimed the expert, stemmed from it being "a little beyond completeness".
But even this seems to be a relatively modern invention. According to my Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland, the first recorded suggestion that 13 had a bad name generally dates from the mid-19th century.
The unluckiness of Fridays, by contrast, had been documented since medieval times, according to the guide, which tracks it from Chaucer right up to the 20th century, when it could still be a problem for employers. The book quotes the case of a woman in Devonshire, circa 1900, who needed a "fresh servant". The candidate chosen was deemed "in every way suitable" except that she "positively refused" to start work on a Friday as requested, because it was unlucky. The employer relented eventually and let her come on Saturday instead.
The first recorded mention of Friday the 13th as a particularly unlucky day, Penguin says, was in 1913. Yet a mere 90 years later, the phobia had so gained in infamy as to become self-fulfilling. One US study has claimed that reluctance to fly, buy a house, or in some cases go to work on this date costs business there up to $900 million a time.
But there may also be an economic advantage in consolidating what were once separate superstitions. Indeed, if it wasn't an evil marketing genius who merged Friday and the number 13, it could have been a ruthless multinational employer with a rationalisation plan. What businesses lose during this year's two affected weeks (the next Friday 13th is in July), for example, they may more than make up for during the other 50.
Or as the Penguin Guideconcludes: "In the last century the rise of Friday the 13th as unlucky has [virtually] eclipsed the idea that all Fridays are suspect."