Did you know?

• Halloween’s roots lead back to the pre-Christian, Celtic or Pagan celebration of Samhain, or “Summer’s End.”

• Orange represents the harvest of autumn, while black symbolizes longer nights. These traditional Halloween colors serve as a reminder this festival once marked the boundaries between life/spring and death/winter.

• “Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and caldron bubble” is from William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.” A trio of witches recite the poem as they scheme over a bubbling cauldron and it’s been associated with witches ever since.

• The word “witch” comes from the Old English word wicce, meaning “wise woman.” While pumpkins are typically orange, they can also be green, white, red and gray.

• Jack-o’-lanterns are believed to have originated in Ireland in the 19th century. However, they carved turnips instead of pumpkins at the time.

• Though everyone associates Halloween with “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” the original Washington Irving short story doesn’t mention Halloween.

• One-quarter of all the candy sold in the U.S. each year is purchased for Halloween.

• Candy corn originally dubbed “Chicken Feed,” became popular once the Goelitz Company took over production in the late 1800s.

• The 1978 classic horror flick, Halloween, was filmed on such a shoestring budget that the crew used a $2 Captain James Kirk mask. There’s a statue of Jason Voorhees (from Friday the 13th) at the bottom of a lake in Crosby, Minnesota.

• In 1962, everyone was doing the “Monster Mash.” That’s the year that Bobby “Boris” Pickett hit the top spot on the charts. The song was also once banned by the BBC because they considered it “too morbid.”

• Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” is the most-played Halloween song.

• The White House was first decorated for Halloween in 1958.

Look for the icon in this issue of Happenings for fall and Halloween related activities.