Tuesday 1 May 2007

Property Boom?

I heard on the news last week that a beach hut, in Dorset I think, had been sold for more than £300,000. I don't think that these would fetch quite that much, if they would then the council is sitting on about 4 million pounds!
I noticed today that there are 14 huts but no number 13, the numbering goes, 12, 12a and 14. Obviously someone suffered from Triskaidekaphobia. Some Christian traditions have it that at the Last Supper Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus, was the 13th to sit at the table, and that for this reason 13 is considered to carry a curse of sorts.
Triskaidekaphobia may have also affected the Vikings — it is believed that Loki in the Norse pantheon was the 13th god. More specifically, Loki was believed to have engineered the murder of Baldr, and was the 13th guest to arrive at the funeral. This is perhaps related to the superstition that if thirteen people gather, one of them will die in the following year. This was later Christianized in some traditions into saying that Satan was the 13th angel.
The Mesopotamian Code of Hammurabi (ca. 1760 BC) omits 13 in its numbered list. This seems to indicate a superstition existed long before the Christian era.

2 comments:

tut-tut said...

But a baker's dozen is 13; is that lucky or unlucky?

Tony Morris said...

Well, for me me it is neither, since I don't suffer from Triskaidekaphobia or any other phobia or superstition.I used to live at a No 13 and my eldest son does at the moment (different house).