Today Is...Friday the 13th

For the superstitious amongst us, when it comes to bad luck, there are crossing paths with a black cat, walking under a ladder and breaking a mirror but Friday the 13th is probably the most feared even if nobody can give a precise answer why.
If you have an irrational fear of the date that makes you a paraskevidekatriaphobian which is a form of triskaidekaphobia, a fear of both spelling Nazi's and the number 13.
There are only two Friday the 13ths in 2023 and we got the first out of the way in January so if you made it through unscathed then you only have to get through today and it's a free run until the next one in September 2024.  
In pagan times Friday was named after the Goddess and Queen of Asgard Frigg and her day was thought to be a lucky day to get married but as Christianity gained momentum in the Middle Ages, Christian leaders objected to the worship of the Goddess as unholy and said that Frigg had been banished to a mountain where she would meet every Friday with eleven witches and the devil and plot ill turns of fate for the coming week.
Christian's point to the Last Supper as the reason why 13 is an unlucky number as Judas Iscariot was the last member to arrive and Jesus was crucified on a Friday but predating that was the Norse myth of the God Loki being the 13th member of the banquet in Valhalla and tricking the blind god Hodr into shooting his brother Balder, the god of light, joy and goodness, with a mistletoe-tipped arrow, killing him instantly.
This myth spread south throughout Europe with the Norsemen invasions and the Christians included it in their Bible with the Norse Gods at a banquet replaced by Jesus and his band of merry men at a supper.
The Friday part comes from Friday being said to be the day that Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, the day Cain murdered his brother, Abel, the day the Temple of Solomon was toppled and the day Noah’s ark set sail in the Great Flood.
It wasn’t until the 19th century, however, that Friday 13th became synonymous with misfortune when the Victorians combined Friday and the number 13 together and it has persisted ever since except in the Taylor Swift household who explains that as she was born on the 13th, turned 13 on Friday the 13th,her first album went gold in 13 weeks, her first No. 1 had a 13-second intro and when she won her first award she was sat in the 13th seat, the 13th row in row M, which is the 13th letter, so she has no problem at all with the number and is rather fond of it.
Very impressive but even more so if she releases a song which rhymes paraskevidekatriaphobia.