Superstitions around My Favorite Number 
by Heather Weidner

It’s my birthday, so I celebrate when it lands on Friday, the 13^th. I was curious about the superstitions around triskaidekaphobia, and not surprisingly, there are still a lot of mysteries and murders that swirl around the possible origins.

The earliest literary reference to the date is in the Revue de Paris in an article by the Marquis de Salvo in 1834. It is about a Sicilian count who killed his daughter on Friday the 13^th. In the same year, the play, Le Chateau de Carini made a reference to the date being unlucky. The date is not considered universally unlucky. In Spain, Tuesday, the 13^th is.

Many tie the superstition to the number 13. Twelve is considered the complete or “perfect” number while 13 can often represent imperfection, the introduction of evil, or even death. In Norse mythology, Loki crashed a banquet of 12 gods, and murder and mayhem ensued. The Code of Hammurabi omitted the thirteenth law, and high-rise buildings to this day usually don’t have a thirteenth floor or a room thirteen. As early as 1565, the Death card in a Tarot deck was numbered thirteen.

There are some Christian traditions that have been linked to the superstition, too. Like Loki, Judas is often considered the thirteenth guest at the Last Supper. Eve was supposed to have tempted Adam on a Friday, and Christ was crucified on a Friday.

Friday the 13^th also is a day tied to a variety of tragedies. In October 1307, King Philip arrested hundreds of the Knights Templar, and many were eventually executed. In 1888, Jack the Ripper killed his last victim on the thirteenth. The Germans bombed Buckingham Palace in September 1940. In November 1970, a cyclone decimated parts of Bangladesh, killing over 300,000 people. Tupac Shakur was murdered in September of 1996. Franklin Roosevelt was so concerned about Friday the 13^th that he refused to travel on that day. Friggatriskaidekaphoia is the term that was coined to describe the fear of the date.

Thirteen also appears in a variety of pop culture references. Thomas William Lawson’s wrote Friday, the Thirteenth in 1907, and the Friday 13^th horror movie franchise launched in 1980, making the serial killer Jason a household name. It also spawned its own cultural references in shows like The Simpsons, Highway to Heaven, South Park, Scream, and scads of video games. Countless songs reference the date or the serial killer, including those by artists, TuPac, Alice Cooper, Elvira, Eminnem, and Lynard Skynard.

The date never bothered me, and I was pleased to discover that people who were born on the thirteenth or celebrate a birthday on the date often feel immune to the superstition.

The tradition of “unlucky” thirteen has permeated our culture for years. Do you have a superstition or something that you regularly avoid?

Through the years, Heather Weidner has been a cop’s kid, technical writer, editor, college professor, software tester, and IT manager. She writes the Pearly Girls Mysteries, the Delanie Fitzgerald Mysteries, The Jules Keene Glamping Mysteries, and The Mermaid Bay Christmas Shoppe Mysteries. 

Her short stories appear in a variety of anthologies, and she has non-fiction pieces in Promophobia and The Secret Ingredient: A Mystery Writers’ Cookbook.

Originally from Virginia Beach, Heather has been a mystery fan since Scooby-Doo and Nancy Drew. She lives in Central Virginia with her husband and a crazy Mini Aussie Shepherd. 

Those Things That Come in Threes by Debra H. Goldstein

 

Those Things That Come in Threes by Debra H. Goldstein

As I’ve grown older, when I hear someone is ill or died, I brace myself because of the old superstition that things come in threes. Sadly, often they do. This month though, I’m cheering the rule of three because it is a multiple of good things.

On April 14, the short story anthology, Sleuths Just Wanna Have Fun: Private Eyes in the Materialistic Eighties, was released by Down & Out Books. I was thrilled that it contained my story, “Who Shot J.R.?” and that I’m in such wonderful company in terms of the included authors: Elizabeth Elwood, John M. Floyd, James A. Hearn, Richard Helms, Kathleen Marple Kalb, Tom Milani, Sandra Murphy, Laura Oles, Alan Orloff, William Dylan Powell, Mark Thielman, Joseph S. Walker, and Andrew Welsh-Huggins.

A day later, the print version of Anything But Murder: Larceny and

Lies was published. It is a compilation of the short stories being read on this season’s Mysteries to Die For podcasts hosted by TG and Jack Wolff. The book includes my holocaust related story “Opera Dinner Club.”  The same story, read aloud by Tina and accompanied by Jack’s music and his trying to guess whodunnit, became available on all different podcast sites on April 18.

I also was informed that I will be moderating the “Influencers in the Cozy Community” panel at Malice Domestic on April 25. Technically, this is a fourth good thing, but I’m rolling back my count to make this a first. I can’t wait to find out what the next two good April things will be. 

Do you ever hold to the rule of three for good or bad things?

SUPERSTITIONS

Grandma’s Luck

Grandma’s luck was in jelly jars

                                                                of four leaf clovers

                                                                on window sills.

                                                       Not in blackberry pies

                                                                with syrupy sodden bottoms

                                                                and charred crusts.

                                                       Nor in “Rock of Ages,” old piano

                                                                with scarred keys

                                                                 creating dissonance.

                                                        Not in slippered feet, falling hose

                                                                 dancing, dodging

                                                                 fugitive sidewalk fowl.

                                                         No, Grandma’s luck was in jelly jars

                                                                  of four leaf clovers

                                                                  on window sills.

                                                                                    - Gloria Alden

Recently when I delivered Mobile Meals to an elderly lady with dementia, I spent some time talking with her daughter, too. I’d had the elderly woman a few years back, but she’d stopped getting meals. I’d enjoyed spending time with her then and was glad I was delivering to her again. While her daughter and I were visiting, and catching up on local news, she said she’d heard I’d found a body in my woods and wanted the details so I told her. Later she asked me if I had cardinals at my place. I told her I did since I feed the birds. She said, “You know cardinals are a messenger from God and you will be having good news.”  I’m not holding my breath waiting for that.

In college I took a class on Folklore. Superstitions were one of the topics covered.  Rather than read the whole chapter on it, I went to Wikipedia which said; “It’s the belief in supernatural causality, that one event causes another without any natural process linking the two events – such as astrology and certain aspects linked to religion, like omens, witchcraft and prophecies, that contradict natural science.

Superstition has been around since ancient times, and who knows maybe as early as cavemen days. One would think that in today’s more enlightened times that superstition would be a thing of the past, but it isn’t.  Following are some common superstitions:

Friday the thirteenth is an unlucky day.  Even if you forget it’s Friday the 13^th?

A rabbit’s foot brings good luck.  Certainly not for the rabbit!

An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Bronson Alcott believed that, and they are good for you, because they add fiber to your diet and that gives you regularity.

To find a four-leaf clover is to find good luck.  My grandmother certainly believed that. She was very good at finding them on her morning walks.

If you walk under a ladder you will have bad luck.  That makes sense. It can be dangerous if you’re not careful, and even more so if someone is on it.  A bucket of paint could really hurt someone, or a dropped hammer. And what about the poor guy or gal on the ladder if you cause him/her to fall?

If a black cat crosses your path you will have bad luck.  Unfortunately, too many people believe this making it hard for shelters to find homes for black cats.

To break a mirror will bring you seven years bad luck.  I don’t believe that at all, although I don’t remember ever breaking a mirror, either.

To open an umbrella in a house is to bring bad luck.  Does it ever rain inside a house?

To find a horseshoe brings good luck.   If you’re going to hang it, make sure it’s not with the opening down, because then all your luck will pour out.

Step on a crack, break your mother’s back.  Is there anyone who didn’t quote that as a child while trying to avoid cracks? If true, there’d be a lot of mothers with broken backs from running kids.

Garlic protects from evil spirits and vampires.  Since I don’t believe in either, I don’t have to hang it around my neck.

If you blow out all of the candles on your birthday cake with the first breath you will get whatever your wish for.  Now that’s one that’s still practiced. I wonder if kids still believe that.

Eating fish makes you smart.  I never heard that before, but I know they’re good for you and everyone is now advised to include fish in their diet.

A cricket in the house brings good luck.  It does? All I know is they can be annoying at night.

It’s bad luck to sleep on the table.  That one made me laugh. I can’t imagine sleeping there.

A bird that comes in your window brings bad luck.  Now I did hear that from one of my aunts. Apparently a bird flew in the house shortly after my grandmother delivered premature twins, and they died.  I still don’t think the bird had anything to do with it.

When a dog howls, death is near. That is something used in old mysteries, isn’t it? It could just be the dog is lonely.

Animals talk at midnight on Christmas Eve.   I’ve never bothered to check that out, although one of my aunts insisted she heard a three-legged sheep in her nativity set bleat. Not sure how the one leg got broken. So on Christmas night, all her nieces and nephews looked at the little sheep in awe hoping it would bleat again. Never herd it.

If you shiver, someone is casting a shadow over your grave?  Before you’re dead you have a grave? What about maybe it’s just that you’re cold and not dressed warm enough?

Washing a car will bring rain.  Sometimes it does seem that way, although I don’t believe it.

A cat will try to take the breath from a baby.  If a cat crawls into a crib with a baby, it’s to seek warmth and comfort in my opinion.

A forked branch, held with a fork in each hand, will dip and point when it passes over water. I tried this as a teenager, and if it’s something like a willow branch, it actually does work. Totally weird, but it did when I held it over puddles or areas where the ground was saturated.  It even split the thin bark on the branch as it pulled to point down. In fact, I’ve heard there’s a scientific basis for that. Thanks, Jim. I checked it out.

The long list that these superstitions came from are only a few from what I downloaded from Superstition Bash – CSI, which you can find online by Googling that.

I don’t consider myself superstitious. I don’t believe bad things happen in threes. Sometimes when everything seems to be going well, I wonder when something bad will happen, but that’s just the way life goes, isn’t it? It has nothing to do with ladders, black cats, a bird flying into a house, or broken mirrors, and a cricket in my house won’t keep bad things from happening.

Do you have any superstitions?

What are ones you’ve heard of that I haven’t listed?