Hunting for Snarks

  Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854, and his family house can still be seen in Merrion Square, just in front of a beautiful statue erected in his memory. Rodhullandemu [CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]   Oscar Wilde is considered by many as a tragic hero. You probably are familiar with his fairy tales (e.g. “ The Happy Prince ”, and “ The Selfish Giant ”). Maybe you know that he wrote a novel whose main character has become as important as count Dracula or the Frankenstein creature —Dorian Gray. In his life, he was a successful playwright and his comedies ( The Importance of Being Earnest , Lady Windemere’s Fan ) made him outrageously popular and stablished the fame of his wit . What you may not know about him is that he spent two years in prison, lost everything he owned, and died in Paris at the age of 46. His family –he had two sons– changed their surname to avoid being linked to his name.    How was that possible? How could the darli

by Edgar A. Poe FOR THE MOST wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not— and very surely do I not dream. But tomorrow I die, and today I would unburthen my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events have terrified—have tortured—have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me, they have presented little but Horror—to many they will seem less terrible than baroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common-place—some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects. From

  Are you getting ready for Halloween? As you know, Jack o'lantern s are an essential part of the festival . Yes, we mean those awesome carved pumpkins with scary faces and a candle inside that people use to decorate their windows, porches and gardens. In our previous post, we discussed one of the legends about the origin of the Jack o'lantern. Click here for a video with one of the many versions of the legend.   If you want to make your first Jack o'lantern, take a look at these videos:   Both of them contain easy to follow, step-by-step instructions on the use of templates to carve fantastic Jack o'lanterns. We are sure you will find them extremely useful. Happy Halloween!

   October is the month in the middle of Autumn, when the equinox takes place. However, if there is something October is really famous for that is Halloween ! THE HISTORY OF HALLOWEEN    Halloween (also spelled Hallowe'en ) is a festival which takes place on October 31st. It started as the Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced /ˈsa:ʊin/), but it was influenced by the Roman festival of Pomona (goddess of fruit and trees). Both festivities were related to the end of the harvest season. Later, the Christian church moved All Saint's Day to November 1st to convince people to stop celebrating Samhain , but it was not a successful move. In the 19th century, Irish and Scottish immigrants carried the custom to the USA, where it evolved a gain.   The Celts believed that on the night of Samhain , the dead walked on earth again. Some of those spirits were evil and they scared people and played nasty tricks on them. So the Celts started to dress up as ghost