THE DREAD OF THE 13 UNFOUNDED

THE DREAD OF THE “13� UNFOUNDED

There was another reason, however, why 13 was dreaded and this was because the occult symbolism that stood for this number was represented by a mystic picture of “a skeleton with a scythe in its bony hands reaping down men”.
It was a curious picture that few could understand and those who did kept their knowledge to themselves in an age when even to speak of such things was to forfeit one’s life by torture or at the stake. This picture allotted to the number 13, although drawn or painted in many different ways, always contained the same idea: a skeleton reaping in a field, hands and feet springing up among new-grown grass, the crowned head of a man fallen at the point of the scythe, while a female head with flowing hair parted in the centre appeared in the background.