UNLUCKY FOR SOME

Is it possible, do you think, that the idea of Thirteen as an unlucky number was promoted by protestant propagandists to overturn the idea of it as a hallowed number?

Christ and his apostles = 13.

"Ah," you say, "yes, but one of them was the betrayer, and that's why it's an unlucky number."

But hold on. This superstition goes back a long way. It is found, for example, in Norse mythology.

Loki appears at a feast for twelve, and a death ensues.

In any case, by Christian times the 12+1 had become a respected pattern for the establishment of almshouses and other foundations. Typically they might be for 13 poor men or women, or for 12 plus a guardian.

It is pretty arbitrary and inconsistent, the reputation of this number. On the one hand, a witches' coven consists of 13, but then so does the Heralds' College (College of Arms), founded in 1483 with 3 kings of arms, 6 heralds and 4 pursuivants.

In October 1163 the transferring of the relics of the newly canonized Edward the Confessor (star preacher, abbot Aelred of Rievaulx) was a national event. It doesn't seem to have bothered anyone that it was the 13th of the month, and this is still a red-letter day each year at Westminster Abbey.

But there are people who won't get married on the 13th. There are a few streets and many hotels where the numbers run straight from 12 to 14; though to call a room 12A, as some hotels do, only serves to remind you of its real number! It's an odd thought too that children impatient to become 'teenagers' regard 13 as a welcome birthday. It used to be the case that if a 'sitting' of eggs was advertised for sale, it was understood that the number was thirteen. And some readers will remember that if you bought a dozen bread rolls you would actually get thirteen, a baker's dozen. Doubtless this began as a safeguard against accusations of selling people short; it may have continued just as "one for luck," but that would associate good luck with thirteen!

On one occasion, at least, 13 was a life-saver. John Hatfield, a soldier in the time of William and Mary, was court-martialled, accused of being asleep at his post. As evidence that he was awake, he said he distinctly heard S Paul's clock strike thirteen. The court was not convinced. While he was under sentence of death, several persons signed an affidavit that the clock had indeed struck 13 instead of 12, and he received a royal pardon. Put at its simplest, it appears that the catch lifted up by the striker did not, after the twelfth stroke, fall into the next notch - either because the catch was stiff or because the notch was worn - and the striking went on to the single stroke due next time; after which, belatedly, the catch did hold.

Hatfield died on 18th June 1770 aged 102.