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"People in most Western countries celebrate Valentine's Day on February 14. Many schools hold Valentine's Day
parties when the children make special decorations for their classrooms. Old and young alike exchange Valentine
cards with their friends. The custom of exchanging greetings on Valentine's Day goes back hundreds of years. Scholars
have found records of Valentine notes that date from the 1400's.
Valentine's Day is a special day observed on February 14. On this day, people send greeting cards called valentines
to their sweethearts, friends, and members of their families. Many valentines have romantic verses, and others
have humorous pictures and sayings. Many say, "Be my valentine."
For weeks before February 14, stores sell valentines and valentine decorations. Schoolchildren decorate their
classrooms with paper hearts and lace for the occasion. On Valentine's Day, many people give candy, flowers, and
other gifts to their friends.
Valentine's Day Around the World In the United States and Canada, children exchange valentines with their friends.
In some schools, the children hold a classroom party and put all the valentines into a box they have decorated.
At the end of the day, the teacher or one child distributes the cards. Many children make their own valentines
from paper doilies, red paper, wallpaper samples, and pictures cut from magazines. Sometimes they buy kits that
include everything needed to make valentines. Many children send their largest, fanciest cards to their parents
and teachers.
Older students hold Valentine's Day dances and parties. They make candy baskets, gifts, and place cards trimmed
with hearts and fat, winged children called cupids. Many people send flowers, a box
of candy, or some other gift to their wives, husbands, or sweethearts. Most valentine candy boxes are heart-shaped
and tied with red ribbon.
In Europe, people celebrate Valentine's Day in many ways. British children sing special Valentine's Day songs
and receive gifts of candy, fruit, or money. In some areas of England, people bake valentine buns with caraway
seeds, plums, or raisins. People in Italy hold a Valentine's Day feast.
In Britain and Italy, some unmarried women get up before sunrise on Valentine's Day. They stand by the window
watching for a man to pass. They believe that the first man they see, or someone who looks like him, will marry
them within a year. William Shakespeare, the English playwright, mentions this belief in Hamlet (1603). Ophelia,
a woman in the play, sings:
Good morrow! 'Tis St. Valentine's Day
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your valentine!
In Denmark, people send pressed white flowers called snowdrops to their friends. Danish men also send a type of
valentine called a gaekkebrev (joking letter). The sender writes a rhyme but does not sign his name. Instead,
he signs the valentine with dots, one dot for each letter of his name. If the woman who gets it guesses his name,
he rewards her with an Easter egg on Easter. Some people in Great Britain also send valentines signed with dots.
Different authorities believe Valentine's Day began in various ways. Some trace it to an ancient Roman festival
called Lupercalia. Other experts connect the event with one or more saints of the early Christian church. Still
others link it with an old English belief that birds choose their mates on February 14. Valentine's Day probably
came from a combination of all three of those sources--plus the belief that spring is a time for lovers.
The ancient Romans held the festival of Lupercalia on February 15 to ensure protection from wolves. During this
celebration, young men struck people with strips of animal hide. Women took the blows because they thought that
the whipping made them more fertile. After the Romans conquered Britain in A.D. 43, the British borrowed many
Roman festivals. Many writers link the festival of Lupercalia with Valentine's Day because of the similar date
and the connection with fertility.
The early Christian church had at least two saints named Valentine. According to one story, the Roman Emperor
Claudius II in the A.D. 200's forbade young men to marry. The emperor thought single men made better soldiers.
A priest named Valentine disobeyed the emperor's order and secretly married young couples.
Another story says Valentine was an early Christian who made friends with many children. The Romans imprisoned
him because he refused to worship their gods. The children missed Valentine and tossed loving notes between the
bars of his cell window. This tale may explain why people exchange messages on Valentine's Day. According to still
another story, Valentine restored the sight of his jailer's blind daughter.
Many stories say that Valentine was executed on February 14 about A.D. 269. In A.D. 496, Saint Pope Gelasius I
named February 14 as St. Valentine's Day.
In Norman French, a language spoken in Normandy during the Middle Ages, the word galantine sounds like Valentine
and means gallant or lover. This resemblance may have caused people to think of St. Valentine as the special saint
of lovers.
The earliest records of Valentine's Day in English tell that birds chose their mates on that day. People used
a different calendar before 1582, and February 14 came on what is now February 24. Geoffrey Chaucer, an English
poet of the 1300's, wrote in The Parliament of Fowls, "For this was on St. Valentine's Day, When every fowl cometh
there to choose his mate." Shakespeare also mentioned this belief in A Midsummer Night's Dream. A character in
the play discovers two lovers in the woods and asks, "St. Valentine is past; Begin these woodbirds but to couple
now?"
Early Valentine Customs
People in England probably celebrated Valentine's Day as early as the 1400's. Some historians trace the custom
of sending verses on Valentine's Day to a Frenchman named Charles, Duke of Orleans. Charles was captured by the
English during the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. He was taken to England and put in prison. On Valentine's Day,
he sent his wife a rhymed love letter from his cell in the Tower of London.
Many Valentine's Day customs involved ways that single women could learn who their future husbands would be. Englishwomen
of the 1700's wrote men's names on scraps of paper, rolled each in a little piece of clay, and dropped them all
into water. The first paper that rose to the surface supposedly had the name of a woman's true love.
Also in the 1700's, unmarried women pinned five bay leaves to their pillows on the eve of Valentine's Day. They
pinned one leaf to the center of the pillow and one to each corner. If the charm worked, they saw their future
husbands in their dreams.
In Derbyshire, a county in central England, young women circled the church 3 or 12 times at midnight and repeated
such verses as:
I sow hempseed.
Hempseed I sow.
He that loves me best,
Come after me now.
Their true loves then supposedly appeared.
One of the oldest customs was the practice of writing women's names on slips of paper and drawing them from a
jar. The woman whose name was drawn by a man became his valentine, and he paid special attention to her. Many
men gave gifts to their valentines. In some areas, a young man gave his valentine a pair of gloves. Wealthy men
gave fancy balls to honor their valentines.
One description of Valentine's Day during the 1700's tells how groups of friends met to draw names. For several
days, each man wore his valentine's name on his sleeve. The saying wearing his heart on his sleeve probably came
from this practice.
The custom of sending romantic messages gradually replaced that of giving gifts. In the 1700's and 1800's, many
stores sold handbooks called valentine writers. These books included verses to copy and various suggestions about
writing valentines.
Commercial valentines were first made in the early 1800's. Many of them were blank inside, with space for the
sender to write a message. The British artist Kate Greenaway became famous for her valentines in the late 1800's.
Many of her cards featured charming pictures of happy children and lovely gardens.
Esther A. Howland, of Worcester, Massachusetts, became one of the first U.S. manufacturers of valentines. In 1847,
after seeing a British valentine, she decided to make some of her own. She made samples and took orders from stores.
Then she hired a staff of young women and set up an assembly line to produce the cards. One woman glued on paper
flowers, another added lace, and another painted leaves. Howland soon expanded her business into a $100,000-a-year
enterprise.
Many valentines of the 1800's were hand painted. Some featured a fat cupid or showed arrows piercing a heart.
Many cards had satin, ribbon, or lace trim. Others were decorated with dried flowers, feathers, imitation jewels,
mother-of-pearl, sea shells, or tassels. Some cards cost as much as $10.
From the mid-1800's to the early 1900's, many people sent comic valentines called penny dreadfuls. These cards
sold for a penny and featured such insulting verses as:
'Tis all in vain your simpering looks,
You never can incline,
With all your bustles, stays, and curls,
To find a valentine.
Many penny dreadfuls and other old valentines have become collectors items.
Valentine, Saint, is the name associated with two martyrs of the early Christian church. Little is known about
them. The Roman history of martyrs lists two Saint Valentines as having been martyred on February 14 by being
beheaded. One supposedly died in Rome and the other at Interamna, now Terni, 60 miles (97 kilometers) from Rome.
Scholars have had great difficulty in finding historical fact among the Saint Valentine legends.
The Saint Valentine who died in Rome seems to have been a priest who suffered death during the persecution of
Claudius the Goth about A.D. 269. A basilica was built in his honor in Rome in A.D. 350, and a catacomb containing
his remains was found on this location.
Another history of martyrs mentions a Saint Valentine who was bishop of Interamna and who may have been martyred
in Rome. By being remembered both in Rome and in Interamna, he may have come to be considered as two people,
but this is not entirely certain.
The custom of exchanging valentines on February 14 can be traced to the English poet, Geoffrey Chaucer. He mentioned
that birds began to pair off on that day."
~Above information taken from The World Book
Encyclopedia 1998~
Legend has it that Valentine was a priest who served during third century Rome. There was an Emperor at that
time by the name of Claudius II. Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those
that were married. With this thought in mind he outlawed marriage for young men in hopes of building a stronger
military base. Supposedly, Valentine decided this decree just wasn't fair and chose to marry young couples secretly.
When Emperor Claudius II found out about Valentine's actions he had him put to death.
Another legend has it that Valentine was an imprisoned man who fell in love with his jailor's daughter. Before
he was put to death he sent the first 'valentine' himself when he wrote her a letter and signed it 'Your Valentine',
words still used on cards today.
Perhaps we'll never know the true identity and story behind the man named St. Valentine, but this much is for
sure...February has been the month to celebrate love for a long time, dating clear back to the Middle Ages.
In fact, Valentines ranks second only to Christmas in number of greeting cards sent.
Cupid
Another valentine gentleman you may be wondering about is Cupid (Latin cupido, "desire"). In Roman
mythology Cupid is the son of Venus, goddess of love. His counterpart in Greek mythology is Eros, god of love.
Cupid is often said to be a mischievous boy who goes around wounding both gods and humans with his arrows, causing
them to fall in love.
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