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HISTORY OF ST VALENTINE'S DAY

The story behind the chocolate and flowers...
Contrary to popular belief, Valentine's Day was not one of those days purely invented by the card shops. Valentine's Day goes way back, and guess what, it's all about a man falling for a woman... All together now... Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh...

That day is fast approaching where you run to your front door upon hearing the post drop on the door mat. You hold your breath thinking that the harder you wish, the more chance there is of a red envelope suddenly appearing among the bills and junk mail.

It may seem like a scam to squeeze more money out of us so soon after Christmas, and of course, some might even feel that there is a hidden agenda of making single people feel alone and unloved!

Actually, there is a long tradition of all of this lovey-dovey stuff in February. St Valentine's Day does have a history, well, several actually, but here are the basics...

Back to basics: a pagan affair
It all started in early Roman times. Mid February was the official beginning of Spring and was seen as a time for renewal and purification.

The Lupercalia festival began at the ides of February (15th) and was a celebration of the God of agriculture. It was essentially a fertility festival and one of the activities was the pairing off of men and women.

Girls' names were put into an urn and young men would pull out names at random. Many of the matches would then result in marriage.

St Valentines
Historical sources say that there were two and maybe even more St Valentines! The traditional line however is that the St Valentine in question died around 270 AD.

Legend has it that Roman Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than married men and he therefore outlawed marriage.

So a priest called Valentine began to help lovelorn couples by secretly marrying them. But when the authorities found out what he was up to, he was thrown into jail.

Before his execution, some stories claim that Valentine himself fell in love with his jailer's daughter. He signed his final note to her, "From Your Valentine": a phrase that has lasted through the centuries.

Sooooo, rather unromantically, it seems that we all celebrate love on the day St Valentine had his head chopped off!!!