If you work 9 to 5 from Monday to Friday, chances are you eagerly look forward to the weekend. Yet, superstitions from all over the world paint a very different picture. Instead of getting excited as the week days pass by, you should be afraid… very, very afraid. Or at least careful.
Some of these superstitions are pretty interesting, but the overall message may be valid: weekends are more dangerous than week days. According to Consumer Machine, there are more driving-related injuries and deaths on the weekend (sources cited for this article were National Transportation Studies and Forbes). The National Safety Council publishes estimates for the number of traffic fatalities for infamously dangerous holiday weekends such as Memorial Day, Labor Day, Christmas, New Years, Thanksgiving, and others.
Here are 10 superstitions about Fridays, Saturdays, or Sundays. If this list prompts you to hide indoors this weekend, just make sure you don’t drop any mirrors, spill any salt, or leave your hat on the bed. Happy Friday the 13th, everyone!
10. Don’t Make Fun of Fairies
They may be teeny tiny and cute, but according to the Irish you should take fairies very seriously- particularly if it’s a Friday. If you speak ill of fairies on a Friday they will work some evil. The good news is they have to be around to overhear you. The bad news is they are very small, so you may not notice (authorsden.com).
9. Casual Friday
Here’s your excuse to take it easy on Friday if you’ve had a long week. According to Irish supersition Friday is the unluckiest day of the week and it’s a particularly bad idea to “begin a journey, or move into a new house, or begin a business, or cut a new dress” (authorsden.com). People in Thailand also believe that Friday is a bad day to start building a house (thaicultureblogs.com). Basically it sounds like it’s a bad idea to start any new project on a Friday, so I suggest you tidy up your desk and take off a bit early today. You can tell your boss the Irish fairies said it was okay.
8. Fridays ‘Sook’
There is a superstition in Thai culture not to have a funeral on Friday because their word for Friday, ‘sook,’ sounds like the same word for ‘happy’ (thaicultureblogs.com). Don’t believe me? Think this whole superstition thing is hogwash? Your parents should have shaved your head when you were a baby, and put the hair under a tree because then you wouldn’t be so stubborn! (Another Thai superstition, mentioned in a forum at thaivisa.com).
7. Things Get Hairy
On the topic of shaving, Italians believe that shaving on a Friday will bring ill health, unless it’s the first Friday of March (lifeinitaly.com). Another superstition says that if you shave your head on a Saturday you will always be in debt (bellaonline.com). That only leaves 5 other days to shave, so make sure you schedule in some appropriate trimming if you’re a man because, according to Chinese superstition, men with messy facial hair are unlucky. Here is a rhyme from bellaonline.com to help you plan your week:
Cut it on Monday to attain health.
Cut it on Tuesday to gain wealth.
Cut it on Wednesday to hear the news.
Cut it on Thursday to get a new pair of shoes.
Cut it on Friday and there will be sorrow.
Cut it on Saturday and you will see your true love tomorrow.
Cut your hair on Sunday and the devil will be with you all week.
I’d suggest you avoid Friday and Sunday, if at all possible. Thursday sounds pretty good…
6. Dirty Supersitions
While we’re on the topic of personal hygiene…
According to the trivia site corsinet.com, “it is bad luck to cut your fingernails on Friday or Sunday.” You’re also warned not to throw them away: if you don’t want to save them you should burn them or bury them. Suddenly my old roommate’s fingernail collection makes so much more sense…
Also fitting in to the whole do-as-little-as-possible-on-Friday theme: don’t bother changing your sheets on a Friday because it will bring you bad dreams.
5. Flower Power
Finding the first flower of Spring on a Saturday is bad luck, but finding it on Friday or Sunday is very good. If you see the flower on a Friday there is wealth in your future. If you see your first flower of the year on a Sunday you will have excellent luck for weeks. I just hope you’re not allergic because:
If you sneeze on a Monday, you sneeze for danger;
Sneeze on a Tuesday, kiss a stranger;
Sneeze on a Wednesday, sneeze for a letter;
Sneeze on a Thursday, something better;
Sneeze on a Friday, sneeze for sorrow;
Sneeze on a Saturday, see your sweetheart tomorrow.
Sneeze on a Sunday, and the devil will have domination over you all week. (corsinet.com)
I’d just like to point out that the last line, while frightening, doesn’t even rhyme. Who makes these things up, anyways?
4. Oh, Baby
Saturday is not a good day to make your entrance into the world, according to this nursery rhyme at rhymes.org.uk:
Mondays child is fair of face,
Tuesdays child is full of grace,
Wednesdays child is full of woe,
Thursdays child has far to go,
Fridays child is loving and giving,
Saturdays child works hard for his living,
And the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.
On the other hand, Fridays are also not great either. “A child born on a Friday is doomed to misfortune” according to a book of proverbs published in 1846 (Oxford University Press’ Blog).
Listen up, babies, if you have to show up on the weekend try to wait until Sunday. Better yet- Monday- and you won’t interrupt the doctor’s golf game. Just be glad you’re not living in a superstitious German household that follows advice such as, “it is not good to hit an animal with the same whip that one used to discipline a child” or “when you see a child’s first tooth, immediately slap his face, and he will teethe easier” (pitt.edu). My childhood is making so much more sense now…
3. When Good Fridays Go Bad
The Christian religious holiday Good Friday commemorates the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ and has many superstitions based around it; the most obvious being to avoid hammers, nails and wood. (I’m not kidding, it really is a superstition observed). Other examples: don’t get lost on Good Friday because no one will find you until Easter and you’re also not supposed to run or laugh.
Of course, not all superstitions lead to ill fortune. Catholics who die on Good Friday get to bypass purgatory and go straight to heaven (a privilege already enjoyed by Christians of most other denominations, since they don’t believe in purgatory) (squidoo.com). There is also a superstition that if you cut your hair on Good Friday you won’t have any headaches for a whole year (but don’t drop the comb or you can expect a disappointment is on its way) (bored.com).
2. For Whom The Wedding Bell Tolls
There is an old rhyme that warns that getting married later in the week is an increasingly bad idea.
Monday for wealth
Tuesday for health
Wednesday the best day of all
Thursday for losses
Friday for crosses
Saturday for no luck at all
While it may annoy your guests, week day weddings are much less expensive, so there is a bright side. Or you can take your chances…
1. Friday the 13th
The most well-known weekend superstition in North America is that Friday the 13th is an unlucky day.
It was certainly an unlucky day if you were a Knights Templar on Friday, October 13, 1307. That is the day that King Phillip ordered the arrest of every Templar in France on charges of heresy. Their property was seized and they were subjected to medieval torture – now that’s a bad day. Al Capone would agree, he was arrested and sentenced to jail on Friday the 13th. Rap singer Tupac Shakur was killed in Las Vegas on a Friday the 13th as well.
General superstition about Friday the 13th is called friggatriskaidekaphobia and it is relatively recent, first popping up in the 1900s, possibly around the same time that a popular novel called Friday, the Thirteenth came out (wikipedia).
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12 Comments
Never tell a dream before breakfast are you will cry before supper.
Yikes! I’m sure most people recount their dreams early in the morning when they can still remember them – never heard of that one before.
I’m with you – no nail cutting on a Sunday, my mum brainwashed me so much I still follow her rule. As nail cuttings, I hide them a crunched up tissue in a bin, just habit I guess. (also so no witches can take them and use them against me !)
And I’m 58 ! Mind you, my wife’s Filipina and our domestic is a Filipina too – my wife also doesn’t want the helper stealing our nails to make a spell with (she does look like an old witch ! The helper that is, not my wife !)
my mother has been telling us our whole lives that you can’t cut your nails on a sunday. i’m now in my thirties and i still feel like i’m doing something wrong if i actually cut my fingernails on sunday.
Nice list. On number 4 (the babies) I guess I lucked out. My husband and first daughter were born on Sunday, my third daughter and only son were born on Tuesday and my second daughter and I were born on Friday 🙂
Nice! I have no idea what days my family was born on – and I think I’ll leave it that way, just in case they are the unlucky ones (I’d rather not know, even though I don’t consider myself superstitious…).
What a fun post! I love it! Stevie Wonder and Sesame Street….you haven’t really arrived until you play Sesame Street, I say.
Agreed! Although Yo Gabba Gabba is a close 2nd 🙂
there is a mistake about the islamic countries and fridays actually muslims all consider friday a sacred day and even considered a holiday so please consider to clear that up
I’m not sure why that statement conflicts with what I wrote? Please clarify and I will change it if necessary, I was quoting from another site, as you can see. Can’t muslims consider Friday a sacred day and also “prefer not to do anything important on Fridays” (like starting a new project, moving to a new house, etc…).
me being muslim, from pakisan, want to clear you that friday is sacred day for us…The friday prayer hold very much importance and even those muslim who don’t pray five times a day can be seen in mosques for friday prayer.. Since prayer is offered at noon timings between 1pm – 2:30 pm (in various part of world) therefore morning time is usually utilized for taking bath, reciting quran and performing various islamic things…after offering friday prayer, usually there are dars (explaination of various islamic aspects) at mosques ..hence the sense in which you have mentioned is wrong…also Superstitions are not entertained in our religion.. Thanks
Okay, I was just back here at this list and I’ve removed the sentence referred to in these comments –