Besides ghosts, goblins and evil witches, Halloween is the time for kids to rot their teeth out and satisfy their ultimate sugar rush. When I was a child, my parents would always triple-check the candy that I had collected in my trick-or-treat bag to make sure that some creepy person didn’t poison me.
When I was little, I believed that ghosts were friendly creatures with good senses of humor and a keen sense of fun. Oh, how deceiving those “Casper the Friendly Ghost” morning reruns were.
Today, I honestly don’t know what to believe.
I did some ghost-hunting recently to dig into Orange County’s urban legends and to check out some of the area’s most haunted places. There are the usual campus legends and lore, and even some creepier places beyond our campus that are worth a visit.
Take a moment to think of a fairy tale. You may be conjuring images of prince charming, frog kisses, a castle, a villain or a strong man saving the princess. And they all lived happily ever after.
Russian fairy tales, on the other hand, do not include a princess charming or a beautiful maiden; they include evil old witches who eat children.
Halloween not only bewitches the United States with trick-or-treating and jack-o-lanterns, this frightful yet delightful holiday has cast a spell on many countries, making All Hallows’ Eve a worldwide celebration. Some of these worldwide traditions have even crept their way into U.S. culture.
