It's Friday the 13th. Don't say we didn't warn you: NPR

A MARTÍNEZ, MODERATOR:

It's Friday the 13th – the day you might want to avoid walking under ladders or maybe drive more carefully. Michel, what about you? Do you plan to avoid anything today?

MICHEL MARTIN, MODERATOR:

Nothing at all. I'm not superstitious at all.

MARTÍNEZ: Me neither. I'm just a little bit religious.

MARTIN: (Laughs).

MARTÍNEZ: Not superstitious. Well, did you know that Friday the 13th, considered unlucky in the United States, is actually a fairly new superstition? It comes from England. Moira Marsh is a folklore librarian at Indiana University Bloomington.

MOIRA MARSH: The first written evidence of this is from 1913. A lot of people would say that's very, very old. But that's not true.

MARTIN: Marsh says many countries around the world celebrate Friday the 13th, but that's mostly because of pop culture – like the movie “Friday the 13th,” the slasher film with the killer Jason wearing a hockey mask.

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MARTÍNEZ: But some countries have their own unlucky days. In Italy, for example, Friday the 17th is considered an unlucky day. In China, the number four is considered an unlucky day because in Mandarin Chinese, four sounds like the word for death. And in Spanish-speaking countries and in Greece, Tuesday the 13th is considered an unlucky day.

MARSH: The idea that 13 is an unlucky number doesn't appear until the 17th century. Before that, it may have been considered lucky. And it supposedly goes back to the 13 people who attended the Last Supper.

MARTÍNEZ: But Marsh says that changed during the Protestant Reformation, a deeply religious time when religious superstition was viewed negatively.

MARSH: So, A, does that explain why you're a little late this morning?

MARTÍNEZ: Hey, in my opinion I was too early, so I don't know.

MARTIN: (Laughs).

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