A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:

It’s Friday the 13th – the day you might want to avoid walking under ladders or drive more carefully in your car. Michel, what about you? Are you planning to avoid everything today?

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Nothing. I am not superstitious at all.

MARTÍNEZ: Me neither. I’m just a little arrogant.

MARTIN: (Laughter).

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

MOIRA MARSH: The first recorded example we have of this on paper is from 1913. A lot of people will tell you that’s very, very old. It’s not.

MARTIN: Marsh says many countries around the world celebrate Friday the 13th, but that’s largely because of pop culture, like the movie “Friday The 13th,” the slasher film featuring the killer Jason, who wears a hockey mask.

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

MARSH: The idea that 13 is an unlucky number doesn’t really start to emerge until the 17th century. Before that, it was probably considered a good number. And it goes back to, allegedly, the 13 people at the Last Supper.

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

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

MARTÍNEZ: Hey, I thought I was early, so I don’t know.

MARTIN: (Laughter).

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