Carving jack-o'-lanterns started long before the legend of the Headless Horseman. NPR's Leila Fadel speaks to Cindy Ott, author of "Pumpkin: The Curious History of an American Icon." ...

Each year during Halloween, pumpkins glowing with ghoulish carved faces arise on porches and windowsills, greeting those dressed as ghouls and providing the spooky element of the night. These are the ...

Oct. 21—The origin of the practice of carving scary faces in pumpkins and lighting them from within got its start in Ireland in the early 1600s, when the legend of a shadowy figure began to arise ...

Long before Linus was summarily chastised by Lucy for his involvement in the Great Pumpkin debable of "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown," the venerable pumpkin had a long and varied history. The ...

Where did the idea of carving pumpkins come from anyway? You might be surprised to hear the glorious gourds weren’t the first choice in produce for the earliest jack-o-lanterns. On Cincinnati Edition, ...

The famine was caused by the oomycete Phytophthora infestans, commonly known as late blight, which destroyed potato crops, the staple food for much of Ireland’s poor. This microorganism is very ...

According to the National Museum of Ireland, the name is meant to refer to an actual Jack. “The term, Jack o’ Lanterns, takes its name from the folktale about Jack, who was welcome neither in Heaven ...

It's the time of year when Halloween decorations are out in full force, and, of course, that includes jack-o'-lanterns. We wanted to know more about the origins of this holiday tradition, so we carved ...

I’ve been reading recently about how the UK suddenly seems much more interested in Halloween than it was a couple of years ago. I’m glad – coming from Ireland, where I feel spooky season is a bigger ...