The American craze for all things pumpkin spice is a relatively new one, but the arrival of the Pumpkin Spice Latté in Starbucks Coffee Houses is fondly awaited by many as a tasty harbinger of the autumnal holiday season

Famous literary pumpkins include: Cinderella's pumpkin carriage; the Headless Horseman's pumpkin of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow; Jack Pumpkinhead of The Marvelous Land of Oz; and Feathertop, Nathaniel Hawthorne's gothic tale of a bewitched scarecrow with a pumpkin head!

Traditional Hallowe'en party games include romantic fortune-telling using nuts placed on a fire grate.
More modern traditions include Hallowe'en party mix using a classic combination of nuts, cereal squares, and Hallowe'en candy!

Green flashes and green rays are rare optical phenomena that occur shortly after sunset or before sunrise, usually observed from a low altitude where there is an unobstructed view of the horizon, such as on the ocean.

The magical ability to assume the form and characteristics of a wolf is known as lycanthropism, or lycanthropy. ​ There was no widespread belief in werewolves in medieval Europe before the 14th century, though the concept of animal shape-shifting goes back much further.

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Burning candles within turnips, rutabagas (swedes), or even beets are traditional ways of deterring evil spirits on Hallowe'en. In the Americas, pumpkins became the jack-o'-lantern of choice!

The folklore surrounding black cats varies from culture to culture, with black cats being reckoned either as harbingers of good fortune or conversely, of bad tidings.

Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. The Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred allowing spirits to roam freely.

The Three Witches or Weird Sisters are characters in William Shakespeare's Scottish play Macbeth (c. 1603–1607). ​ They prophesy both his ascent to king and subsequent downfall. The darkly contradictory witches, their "filthy" trappings and supernatural activities, all set the ominous tone for the play.

Bats have long been associated with the mysterious and the supernatural even before Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) which added the idea that a vampire could shape shift into the form of a bat! In his pursuit and seduction of Lucy, Count Dracula frequently disguises himself in the form of a large bat which flaps at her window.

The charismatic vampire of modern fiction was born in 1819 with the highly successful publication of The Vampyre by John Polidori. However, it is Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula which provides the basis of the modern vampire legend and the gaunt, pale undead figure recognized today.

Mischief Night, also sometimes known as Devil's Eve is an informal holiday in which historically, children and teens engage in minor devilment and pranks such as ringing false alarms, ringing doorbells and leaving before someone answers, stealing gates, setting fires, and breaking windows!

Ghosts and goblins, jack-o-lanterns and witches, trick-or-treating, and spooky nights - Happy Hallowe'en!