Fancy That!

Facts to make you go“WOW!”

FOR ITS WEIGHT AND THICKNESS, SPIDER SILK IS AS STRONG AS STEEL.

◆ The word pumpkin comes from the Greekeek word pepon, meaning “l arge melon”.

◆ “TIGHT AS A BOILE ED OWL” WAS VICTORIAN N SLANG FOR DRUNK!

DraculaDracula, in the Wallachian language, means devil

◆ Mary Shelley wa as 18 when she wrote w Frankenstein.

◆ IN IRELAND IT WAS TRADITIONAL TO CARVE JACK-O’-LANTERNS FROM TURNIPS OR BEETROOTS RATHER THAN PUMPKINS AT HALLOWEEN.

◆ An old Austrian tradition was to leave out food for the ghosts of loved ones who visited on Halloween.

◆ A RAT CAN SURVIVE WITHOUT WATER FOR LONGER THAN A CAMEL.

◆ THE WORLD’S LARGEST GATHERING OF “ZOMBIES” SAW 15,458 FANCY DRESS FANS TAKE PART IN THE ZOMBIE PUB CRAWL IN MINNEAPOLIS, IN 2014.

◆ In Japan, the dead are always buried with their head pointing north.

◆ Many Italian men used to propose on

Halloween, hiding the ring in a dish of Fave di Morti, or “beans of the dead”.

◆ It’s said that if you’re the first to grab a bobbing apple with your teeth then you’ll soon find your true love, and that if you sleep with the apple under your pillow you’ll dream about them.

◆ STEPHEN KING’S STORY IT WAS INSPIRED BY THE THREE BILLY GOATS GRUFF.

◆ ACCORDING TO FOLKLORE, IF YOU PEEL AN APPLE IN ONE STRIP AND THROW IT BEHIND YOUR BACK, WHATEVER LETTER IT FORMS IS THE FIRST INITIAL OF YOUR FUTURE HUSBAND’S NAME.

The female Darwin’s bark spiders can build webs that span rivers up to 80-feet wide!

◆ OBON IS THE JAPANESE EQUIVALENT OF HALLOWEEN AND CELEBRATED IN AUGUST.

◆ THE FIRST KILLER CLOWN APPEARED IN THE 1892 OPERA PAGLIACCI.

◆ The larg gest-ever jack-o’-lan ntern was carved d by Scott Cully from a 1,810.5 lb pumpkin.

590,000 tons of chocolate worth £5.2billion was sold in the UK lastyear Alien is the most successful horror movie franchise, with eight films grossing $1.5 billion between them Abat can eat3,000 insects in asingle night