Amour!!

It's that day again!

HAPPY

VALENTINE’S

DAY!

On the Eve of the fourteenth of February, St. Valentine’s Day, a time when all living nature inclines to couple, the young folk in England and Scotland too, by a very ancient custom, celebrate a little festival that tends to the same end. An equal number of maids and bachelors get together, each writes their true or some feigned name upon separate billets, which they roll up, and draw by way of lots, the maids taking the men’s billets and the men’s the maids, so that each of the young men lights upon a girl that he calls his Valentine, and each of the girls upon a young man whom she calls hers. By this means each has two Valentines; but the man sticks faster to the Valentine that is fallen to him, than to the Valentine to whom he is fallen. Fortune having thus divided the company into so many couples, the Valentines give balls and treats to their mistresses, wear their billets several days upon their bosoms or sleeves, and the little sport often ends in love. This ceremony is practiced differently in different counties, and according to the freedom or severity of Madam Valentine. There is another kind of Valentine, which is the first young man or woman that chance throws in your way in the street or elsewhere on that day.

J. Misson De Valbourg (Memoirs and Observations in his Travels Over England).

                                   

 

Despite being attributed to St. Valentine, the custom of choosing sweethearts on the 14th February actually arose in French and English court circles during the fourteenth century. The fourteenth was supposed to be the wedding day of the birds.

The earliest known poem concerning this day is Chaucer’s “Parliament of Fowls” written c. 1381. Thirty years later the poet John Lydgate used the word “valentine” both for the person loved and also the poem sent.

In 1477, Margery Brews wrote to her fiance John Paston as her “right wellbelovyd Voluntyn.”

The Diarist, Samuel Pepys gives excellent descriptions of seventeenth century Valentines, rarely failing to mention the day. His entries for 1666 include references to drawing Valentines by lot, and complaints about the expense of several presents he felt obliged to give the lady who had drawn him, for example “ a dozen pairs of gloves and a pair of silk stockings”. In the nineteenth century more modest gifts were given. In Norwich, Norfolk, people laid packages on doorsteps, banged the knocker and then rushed away.

By the 1860’s Valentine’s Day was big business as special writing paper and cards were being commercially produced.

                                      

It is was widely believed (as above) that the first person seen on the morning of Valentine’s Day would be your future spouse. In 1662, Mrs. Pepys, wife of Samuel, spent the day with her hands over her eyes to avoid seeing some painters working in her house! Children in many areas went from door to door in the early morning singing “Good morrow, Valentine and, in return, expected to receive cakes, fruit or money.

My own Valentine and I exchanged cards this morning and now I am off to have another look at my lovely flowers.  Wishing you all a wonderful Valentine's Day.

Happy Valentine's day Mike, my darling, I love you more than words can ever say. Thank you for being my rock.