The Hook

Halloween as we know it today is a secular holiday celebrated, by children and adults alike, by wearing costumes, parading door-to-door asking for treats and reveling in supernatural imagery like ghosts, witches and vampires. 

Halloween has roots in both ancient superstition and medieval Christian traditions surrounding death and the afterlife. That makes it fertile ground for all manner of scary rumors and urban legends. 

It goes without saying it's Snopes' favorite holiday.

For this collection, we've dipped into the Snopes archive to assemble a grab bag of Halloween goodies, old and new — such as the origin stories of wearing costumes and going trick-or-treating on what was once called All Hallows Eve; our investigation into the history of the jack o' lantern and how it (supposedly) got its name; and the origins of modern-day moral panics caused by the alleged tainting of Halloween candy with poison, drugs, or foreign objects, and why these panics persist.

Halloween may be the scariest holiday of the year, but don't let that stop you from enjoying the lore and the gore. Ghosts and goblins aren't real. Witches only exist in fairy tales. Put on your "sexy Freddy Krueger" costume and let's go trick-or-treating!