For all the fear and dread that surround Friday the 13th, there is one group of people who celebrate the calendar date. It's a holiday for folklorists, who revel in centuries of fantastical legends and strange rituals.

New Jersey looms large in the world of superstition. The Garden State is a land of mythical tales about mutant rabbits, sea serpents, roadside apparitions, phantom locomotives, buried treasure and malevolent trees.

Rutgers professor Michael Rockland is New Jersey's resident Friday the 13th expert. He says the unlucky Fridays tend to be uneventful.

"People are being cautious," says Rockland, who's researched the origins of the superstition. "People are paying attention. It's actually pretty safe out there."

So relax, spill some salt, cuddle up with a black cat and read about 13 Garden State superstitions. Some of these stories may be familiar to Weird NJ subscribers, but many are new discoveries exhumed from a historical newspaper archive.

Spook rabbits

Bloodthirsty bunnies dwell along a hill in Harmony Township, attacking hunting dogs to avenge the deaths of fellow cottontails. Even the most sharp-eyed sportsman cannot kill these hopping predators, locals say. A New York hunting columnist first reported the "spook rabbit" phenomenon in 1891. He ventured out to Harmony and fired at the elusive critters for more than an hour, failing to hit a single target. He remained skeptical, however, explaining that rabbits were protected by dense undergrowth. The wounded dogs, he added, were not the victims of fluffy fiends. Thorn-laced shrubbery along the trail was the likelier culprit, the writer surmised.

Evil grows in Basking Ridge

The Devil's Tree is a spindly oak in Basking Ridge that has withstood decades of efforts to chop it down. Even the mightiest swing from the burliest lumberjack barely registers as a paper cut on the trunk of this arbor monster. Dark spirits are said to guard the tree. At least one mysterious death has been documented near the lonely oak. In 1948, a young female equestrian was accidentally shot and killed by her fiance during a hunting trip.

Sussex sea serpent

Lake Hopatcong boaters, swimmers and anglers share the water with a sea monster nicknamed Hoppie. Although the creature is regarded as a friendly inhabitant, there was a panic in 1894, when fishermen first noticed something lurking in the lake. The monster was described as 40 feet long, with the head of a canine and the body of a snake, "as thick as a man's leg." The archived news story includes quotes from doubters who suggested that the behemoth was probably a floating beer keg.

Watch your step

In New Jersey, walking over an unmarked grave can cause incurable foot cramps, according to an 1891 roundup of "Queer superstitions about the dead," printed in the New York Recorder.

Hockey hair

The key to winning the Stanley Cup is not savage skating or puck precision. It's all about the playoff beard. Although the Garden State isn't the birthplace of lucky postseason scruff, one of hockey's most legendary whiskered warriors is Ken Daneyko of the Jersey Devils. The defensive player wielded a stick and a scowl for more than two decades, setting records and growing facial hair.

Wilson's scarf pin

Jersey governor-turned-president, Woodrow Wilson, warded off misfortune by wearing a lucky scarf pin, according to an article in the New York Sun. He had a different amulet for each stage in his political career. During his tenure in Trenton, his pin was engraved with the New Jersey state seal. When he moved to the White House in 1913, he traded up to a medallion depicting the Great Seal of the United States, featuring 13 stars and stripes representing the original colonies. Yup, his favorite number was 13.

Rutgers romance

Unlucky in love? Try the Rutgers Passion Puddle. A pond on the Douglass campus in New Brunswick has supposed magical properties. "If a couple walks around the Passion Puddle three times, it's believed they're going to get engaged," says Rutgers folklorist Angus Gillespie. One caveat: The puddle's romantic powers are limited to Rutgers students and alumni.

The lonely grave of Lulu Lorch

Slithering between headstones, the Woodbridge cemetery snake is bad omen for graveyard visitors. Those who get too close to the purple-black serpent are doomed to die within an hour, at least according to 19th-century Jerseyans. Locals began fearing the portentous reptile after a bizarre incident at the funeral for a young woman named Lulu Lorch in 1896. Mourners were shocked when a 4-foot-long snake slinked into her grave and wrapped itself around her coffin. Twenty minutes later, Lorch's 29-year-old brother, William, died of heart failure, the New York Herald reported. The serpentine intruder apparently vanished after the episode. Of course, if the superstition is true, any witnesses likely expired before they could share the tale.

Schooley's Mountain scam

There's gold beneath the dirt around Schooley's Mountain. Before you head out with a shovel, be warned, goblins watch over the loot. It all started when an 18th-century huckster, Ransford Rogers, told Morris County residents that riches were beneath their feet. Rogers offered, for a fee, to communicate with the wraiths that protected the treasure. Aided and abetted by a friend draped in a white sheet, Rogers pretended to confront the phantoms. He swindled dozens of hapless gold diggers before vanishing from a prison cell.

Honk for horror

The Atco Ghost is Jersey's most dutiful apparition, a specter that appears when drivers honk three times on Burnt Mill Road in the Pine Barrens. The legend is that a boy darted into the street chasing a ball and was struck by a drunken driver. Now, his spirit haunts the accident site, according to Weird NJ and scores of paranormal blogs. Thanks to the extensive the coverage, Atco has evolved into a destination for morbid travelers.

Go-go ghouls

The Liquid Assets gentlemen's club in South Plainfield serves up more than adult beverages and bikini dancing. One of the regulars at the go-go bar is the ghost of a hitman named Vincent "Mad Dog" Cole, who was acquainted with owner John Colasanti's grandmother. "A psychic told me that he followed me here to help me in business," Colasanti says. "And he has helped. The club is a place of curiosity because there's a lot of unexplained situations that have happened here." Colasanti says cocktails occasionally evaporate and, once, Mad Dog shredded a bartender's blouse.

Broad Street blood on the tracks

A ghost train chugs through Newark's Broad Street station on the 10th of every month at midnight, driven by a zombie engineer who died along the tracks in 1868. During the early years after the tragedy, morbid spectators would gather monthly in the dark, hoping to catch a glimpse of the fabled locomotive. According to an 1873 Newark Courier story, a crowd of 600 waited in the February cold for the midnight train. While it failed to appear, everyone got a jolt when a practical joker in a railyard nearby sounded a whistle as the clock struck 12 a.m.

Wedded miss in Atlantic City

Friday was once considered the unluckiest day of the week to get hitched. Folks also said that encountering a cross-eyed person on the way to a wedding meant the marriage was ill-fated. In 19th-century Atlantic City, a justice of the peace reluctantly agreed to marry a couple on a Friday, according to a Cleveland Plain Dealer article. But when the justice got his first look at the man and woman, he canceled the event. "I'm not superstitious," he proclaimed, "but I draw the line at marrying cross-eyed people on a Friday."