Valentine’s Day – history and traditions

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and many people think that it is just a commercial festival, hyped by  the media and shops, just about giving them more business. So we have done some of our usual research to discover the history and traditions of this celebration of Love.

History

February was the month in which the ancient Romans prepared for the arrival of Spring. They used to do several purification rites and propitiatory sacrifices to the god Lupercus (the god who kept the wolves away from the farms). It is said that the event that the young Roman people looked forward to most, was the 15^th of February, when a “fertility rite” took place: the names of all the women and all the men were placed in urns and mixed. A child drew the names at random, forming couples who would live together for the rest of the year. It is sure that Lupercus was also the god of fertility.
During his pontificate (492-496 A.D.) the Pope Gelasius replaced this feast with St. Valentine’s Day, and brought the festival forward one day to the 14^th of February.
Valentine was a bishop of Terni. He was martyred about two hundred years before by the Roman Emperor Claudius II. Valentine, in fact, died in Rome where he had gone to cure a sick child. After healing him, Valentine converted his father, the famous philosopher Cratone and three of his disciples. After that, the story says that Valentine was sent for by the crazy Emperor Claudius II who tried to convert Valentine back to paganism. Valentine refused to lose his faith and in his turn tried to convert the Emperor  to Christianity. For this reason, the bishop was sentenced to stoning and beheading, which took place on 14^th February of 273 A.D. Cratone and its disciples took his corpse and moved it to Terni, where he was buried. Young couples used to go to his burial place to make peace after a quarrel.

So why is Valentine considered the patron saint of lovers and love?

There are many legends about this saint’s life and many of them have given rise to the traditions that have been handed down to us today. I thought that you would like to know some of them.

“Your Valentine”: Some people say that during his imprisonment, Valentine fell in love with the blind daughter of the jailer, Aterius, whose sight he miraculously restored. Before his death, the legend goes  that Valentine wrote a farewell message to this girl, and signed himself as “your Valentine”, from which comes the famous phrase used by lovers to sign their cards on Valentine’s Day.

Legend of the noble’s love: In Terni lived a young Roman centurion, whose name was Sabino. He fell in love with a Christian girl, Serapia. Her parents refused to give their daughter in marriage to Sabino, because of his religion,  so Sabino decided to go to bishop Valentine to convert to Christianity, as an act of love. During preparations for his baptism, Serapia became ill with tuberculosis. Sabino begged Valentine not to let him be separated from his loved one. Valentine christened Sabino and married the two young lovers, but then just as Valentine was lifting his hands to bless them, death claimed both of them together, uniting them for eternity.

The Rose of Reconciliation: One day when Valentine was walking in his garden, he heard two lovers arguing. He went to meet them with a rose in his hand and gave it to them. He asked them to make up their quarrel and to hold the stem of the rose together without pricking themselves, praying to God  to keep their love alive forever. Sometime later, the couple returned  to Valentine telling him of their wish to get married. The story became very popular and people began to visit Valentine on the 14^th of every month which became the day dedicated to blessings. The date of the event was then restricted to just the month of February to celebrate the anniversary of Saint’s death.

The legend of the children: Valentine’s garden was also the place where the town’s children used to play. It was a beautiful and safe place. When it was evening, Valentine used to go to the children and give them a flower to take home to their mothers. In this way he made sure that they would all go straight home before nightfall and at the same time, he was teaching them the importance of respect and love for their parents. From this legend the custom grew to make small gifts to the people we love.

The legend of the doves: This legend is related to the previous one. During his captivity, Valentine was very sad and worried that the children could no longer play in his garden which was now closed up. Two of his doves managed to escape from their cages and, who knows how, they managed to find Valentine in his prison. He recognized them and took them in. Around the neck of one of them he tied a small bag shaped like a heart with a message inside and around the neck of the other one he tied a key. When the doves returned to Terni the people discovered that the key was the one for their beloved bishop’s garden  and in the message was written: “To all my beloved children… from your Valentine”. Hence the custom of lovers wearing a heart and a key as sign of mutual love.
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Curiosities and traditions: How Is Valentine’s Day celebrated by Italian lovers? Which are the main traditions to respect?

In Italy there are many traditions for this special day. Many men give bouquets of flowers to their loved ones. Many people also give boxes of chocolates, especially  “Bacio Perugia” (Bacio-meaning ‘kiss’- is a special kind of chocolate made by the Perugina company), which contains small cards with mottos and quotes about love from writers and poets all over the world. Valentine’s Day gifts are very personal, some people prefer to give their partners just a small pledge of love like greetings cards, chocolates or flowers, others like to give a useful or romantic gift and others prefer to celebrate with a candlelit dinner at home or in a restaurant. In the last while young people have established another tradition of dedicating romantic songs (or “their song”) to their lover on the radio or on TV music channels (such as MTV).

Valentine’s day is enthusiastically observed here in Italy by all the lovers, above all by the youngest ones. Shop windows and gadget shops are full of red paper hearts and soft toys such as doves, rabbits or ducks, kissing or wrapped in a romantic embrace. Some Italian confectioner’s shops prepare gorgeous cakes in the shape of a heart, especially for Valentine’s day,  and decorate them with flowers and red hearts made of sugar. Everything is then enriched by loads of whipped cream and chocolate. An absolute delight for the eyes and the tastebuds!

The main color on Valentine’s day is RED. Many restaurants decorate tables with red candles, red dishes and red flowers, as sign of love and passion. Also the flowers which are usually bought by the man to his woman are red, preferably red roses. The woman’s dress is red or is enriched by something in red such as an evening purse or a refined pair of shoes.

Here in Italy, many restaurants also present a special  Valentine’s Day menu, featuring gorgeous Italian chili dishes, which according to very old sayings, increase the couple’s passion and their love.

But how is this special feast commemorated in the other foreign European and non-European countries?

We have done some brief research on the web and analyzed the origin of this feast and the main traditions which have to be respected. However, we have just read this information on the web so we are not completely sure how true it all is. If the reported information shouldn’t be completely exact, please let us know and we will immediately make the necessary corrections and changes.

The United Kingdom is perhaps one of the countries with the most traditions and legends around this day. It seems that the tradition of celebrating Valentine’s Day as a celebration of love was born at the end of 1300 when Geoffrey Chaucer wrote a poem for the marriage of King Richard II and Anne of Bohemia which took place actually on the 14^th of February. Here it’s the tradition to give flowers and valentines, greetings cards shaped in the form of hearts, doves, Cupid etc.. which are supposed to be strictly anonymous. In Derbyshire there is an ancient tradition of the young women running twelve times around the church at midnight repeating “I sow hemp seeds, hemp seeds I sow. The one who really loves me here he comes now after me”. At the twelfth turn they hoped that their true love would appear.

Wales celebrated Love’s day on January 25^th instead, the Dygg Santes Dwynwen, (Day of Saint Dwynwen). There are multiple versions of this legend. However it seems that a girl named Dwynwen fell in love with a man, Maelon. Unfortunately, her father had already given her in marriage to another man. Desperate, Dwynwen prayed to God to make her forget her beloved. After she felt asleep an angel brought her a potion to erase all the memories of the boy, but if she had drunk it, Maelon would have turned into a statue of ice. God then granted Dwynwen  three wishes. The first wish was that Maelon would thaw, the second that God would always help young lovers in their hopes and their dreams and the last wish that she would never marryanyone. So Dwynwen became the protector of lovers in the Welsh tradition. On this occasion it is customary among lovers to exchange wooden spoons carved with decorations such as hearts, keys and padlocks.

In China, the equivalent feast of Saint Valentine is in July. It is the Qi Xi Festival, inspired by the Chinese tale which tells about the love between a peasant – Niu Lang – and a goddess in heaven – Zhi Nu, one of seven daughters of The Empress of Heaven. It is said that once in the night these seven girls went to Earth for a bathe in a river. Niu Lang saw them and played a joke on them, hiding their clothes. The girls sent the youngest of them to get their dresses back. It was Zhi Nu. When they met the two fell in love at first sight. The Empress who watched the scene from the skies, didn’t approve and with a gold brooch drew a line in across the sky: which was enough to create the Heavenly River (the Milky Way), which now separated the two lovers, only allowing them just to look each other  from far. The Phoenix (Feng –  an important magical creature in Chinese mythology) was touched by the plight of the two separated lovers, and decided to use all the magpies on Earth to compose a bridge of wings, so that the couple could meet each other  once a year: on the seventh day of the seventh month. This festival is also called the “Girls’ Feast” in the countryside, because in the evening all the girls offer melons and other fruits to the stars and pray to have a good marriage. Another tradition is that girls can hide themselves in a pit or in a vineyard at night, so that they can hear Niu Lang and Zhi Nu’s sighs and this would make them become skilled, intelligent and have a good marriage.

In Germany lovers give each other greetings cards, flowers and small presents; often they celebrate the day with a romantic dinner.

In Holland too anonymous cards and small presents are given.  The most common gift is a heart of licorice.

Of the Scandinavian countries, Valentine’s Day is not much celebrated in Norway and Sweden , but in Denmark ,lovers exchange cards with anonymous verses accompanied by white Snowdrop flowers. Whoever receives the cards has to guess the author. In Finland, on the other hand, the festival includes all ones friends, as the name indicates: Ystävänpäivä, “Friend’s day”.

In South Korea the lovers’ day was started in 1994 by a candy making company,  which imported it to the country. The festival is called “Peper Day” and is celebrated on 11^th November. On that day lovers now give each other Peper sticks, a stick of chocolate produced by the company of that name.

In Spain, passionate Iberian lovers give each other roses. In Barcelona, in Catalonia, however they celebrate La Diada de Sant Jordi (the day of Saint George, in Catalan). The legend dates back to the fifteenth century. It tells about a princess, who is the prisoner of a dragon. St. George came to kill the dragon with his sword and free the girl. A rose grew up from the dragon’s blood, so each year on April 23^rd boys give roses to their girlfriends, sisters, friends, mothers, etc. The women give books to their  men as the old saying goes: “a rose for love and a book forever” (it is, in fact, also called “El dia del llibre”, “Book Day”). It is a very important celebration in Catalonia if you think, for example, that St. George’s Cross is also part of Barcelona’s flag.

In Japan, the custom is rather that the women give boxes of chocolates and flowers to the men. The “giri-choko” are gifts for their men colleagues, the ‘honmei-choko “is instead the chocolate for the one they love. The following month, however, there is the “White Day”, when men have the obligation to return the favor of the gifts received by giving girls the “sanbai-gaeshi,” a gift in white.

In the U.S. the first to start producing Valentine’s Day cards was Miss Esther Howland who had imported the custom of Valentines from England, and that’s how the tradition of cards arrived over there. The cute thing is that children also celebrate the day by sending cards to their cartoon heroes .

In the southern state of Goa (the smallest state in India) between February and March  the population  celebrates the festival of Holi, which commemorates the god Kadmdev who used to make couples fall in love with heart-arrows, just like our Cupid .

In Brazil,  the Dia dos Namorados (the Lovers’ Day) is celebrated on June 12^th , the day before St. Anthony, who is considered the patron saint of marriages.

One last interesting fact: the oldest celebration of love seems to be the feast of Sepandarmazgan, a Persian festival dating back two thousand years ago! The anniversary is February 17^th and it celebrates love and the earth in ancient Iranian culture.