It’s Friday. You can put those words on my tombstone if you want to. That’ll mean I’ve gone to be with my family. It’s Friday today. Those words are good news—they mean the end of the work week, the beginning of Saturday and Sunday, fun days.
But once upon a time, “It’s Friday” was among the least auspicious things you could say. Friday was considered completely unlucky—not only a Friday occurring on the 13th of the month, but any Friday.
Scholars attempting to trace the origin of this superstition have cited a number of examples: the European tradition of executing criminals on Friday, which dates back to the Middle Ages. “Hangman’s Day,” they used to call it. There are a number of biblical examples, as well. Supposedly, Adam and Eve succumbed to temptation on a Friday. Similarly, it is said the Great Flood began, the Tower of Babel fell, and the destruction of Solomon’s Temple all occurred on a Friday.
And while it would seem that Christ’s Friday crucifixion is the most likely origin, anthropologists point out that Friday was once the day of rest for certain primitive tribes, and that those who worked on that day invited the most unfavorable fortune.
The bad-Friday superstition has had no trouble attracting believers throughout the centuries. In various parts of the world, there were those who refused to plant potatoes, go courting, or even cut their fingernails on a Friday. “Turn a bed on a Friday,” it’s been said, “and the night will be sleepless.” Once it was thought that eggs laid on a Friday were the ones that went stale.
Our ancestors warned one another never to begin anything on a Friday—not a birth, or a marriage, or a profession, or especially a journey. Folks used to be quite reluctant to travel on Fridays, sailors in particular.
For hundreds of years, this nonsense was tolerated—until it last tangled with an even more formidable issue: money. And that brings us to the rest of the story.
It made news at the time; even an 1891 issue of Scientific American reported what had happened. The story involved a contemporary English ship owner. Because of the superstition we’ve been discussing, he was rarely able to find a crew who would agree to set sail on a Friday, and it was costing him—and virtually everybody else in the shipping trade—a lot of business.
Then one day, he conceived a way to sabotage Friday-phobia. He was going to add one more ship to his fleet of merchant vessels. He was going to sign every contract concerning her construction on a Friday. He was going to lay her keel on a Friday. He would launch her on a Friday. He would even employ a Captain James Friday for her maiden voyage—and it was to begin on a Friday and terminate in the East Indies on a Friday. And the vessel was to be christened “The Friday”.
After the bravest and the least superstitious seamen in all of England were hand-picked for her crew, The Good Ship Friday sailed toward the horizon. In doing so, she had struck a blow for reality, for rationality, and for reason.
So, it’s Friday again. I say, put those words on my tombstone if you like, because Friday means the work week is over—and “Friday” on a tombstone would mean I’ve gone to be with my family. Those words, either way, spell good news.
We don’t fear Fridays anymore… in spite of what happened a century ago. I was telling you about the merchant vessel named Friday, with a captain named Friday, which set sail on her maiden voyage on a Friday.
She was never heard from again.
And now you know… the rest of the story.
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