Guided tour of the Penn Museum with a spooky twist on vampires, werewolves and sea monsters, tracing the origins of Halloween back to Samhain.
Monsters, Myths, and Legends is a guided tour at the Penn Museum running on Sunday, October 25, Friday, October 31, and Saturday, November 1, from 2:00 to 3:30 PM. It's led by an expert guide, and the whole thing is built around a spooky twist that takes you beyond the object labels you'd see on your own. The tour is a hunt for vampires, werewolves, sea monsters, and other mythic beasts that sit right on the line between fear and fascination. Along the way, you'll dig into what those monsters protected, punished, and revealed about the cultures that imagined them.
There's a second thread running through the tour: the origins of Halloween. It traces the holiday back to the era of Julius Caesar and the Druids. The Celts celebrated Samhain on the night of October 31, when they believed the ghosts of the dead returned and the Druids made prophecies, wearing animal heads and skins and lighting sacred bonfires. Roman festivals later merged with Samhain, and the Christian feast of All Saints Day gave the tradition its name. From there, the Irish potato famine of 1846 carried the celebration to America and shaped the modern trick-or-treat custom we know now.
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Children are welcome, though the tour is designed primarily for adults, and space is limited. Tickets are $30 for general admission and $26 for members, and the tour ticket includes full-day Museum admission. Each session runs from 2:00 to 3:30 PM on October 25, October 31, and November 1.
