My Pagan Valentine
“But most historians think Valentine’s Day has more to do with the ancient Roman holiday of Lupercalia, a fertility festival celebrated each year in mid-February. One of the favorite Lupercalia party games was putting the names of the girls in a bowl and having the boys each draw a name. That was your date for the entire festival, and any relationship that lasted beyond that was supposed to be blessed with good luck and lots of little Romans, sometimes called Romanettes.” – Peter Buffa, The Daily Pilot
“Our ancestors observed Valentine’s Day in different ways, depending upon their culture and the era in which they lived. But the origins of this holiday are as mysterious as many of our genealogies. Scholars say the tradition had its beginnings in the pagan Roman feast of Lupercalia, which commemorated a young man’s rite of passage. As part of the ritual, the young man would draw the name of a teen-age girl who would be his companion during the year. In A.D. 270, in an attempt to do away with the pagan festival the Pope and the Church looked for a suitable patron saint to take the place of the pagan god Lupercus. They chose Valentine, a Roman priest who had been beheaded by Emperor Claudius.” – Regina Hines, The Sun Herald
“Valentine’s Day has been celebrated for centuries with romantic dinners, cards, flowers, and other gifts in honor of love, friendship and St. Valentine. While the history of this patron saint is shrouded in mystery, the day contains vestiges from both Christian and pagan Roman traditions. “ – Cindy Blankenship, SouthernOregonNews.com
“Saudi Arabia’s religious police announced Sunday it has banned any celebration of Valentine’s Day, deeming it as a ‘pagan’ holiday.” – MENAFN.com
“The Festival of Love was one of the festivals of the pagan Romans, when paganism was the prevalent religion of the Romans more than seventeen centuries ago. In the pagan Roman concept, it was an _expression of “spiritual love”. There were myths associated with this pagan festival of the Romans, which persisted with their Christian heirs. Among the most famous of these myths was the Roman belief that Romulus, the founder of Rome, was suckled one day by a she-wolf, which gave him strength and wisdom. The Romans used to celebrate this event in mid-February each year with a big festival. One of the rituals of this festival was the sacrifice of a dog and a goat. Two strong and muscular youths would daub the blood of the dog and goat onto their bodies, then they would wash the blood away with milk. After that there would be a great parade, with these two youths at its head, which would go about the streets. The two youths would have pieces of leather with which they would hit everyone who crossed their path. The Roman women would welcome these blows, because they believed that they could prevent or cure infertility.” – Sslam online, The New Nation
“Some historians trace the beginning of the Valentine tradition to the third century, when two Christians named Valentine were martyred. Other more secular sources cite a pagan ritual called Lupercallllia, which fell in mid-February, about the time when the two martyred Valentines met their fate.” – Fraim, Chillicothe Gazette
“Christianity may have joined in commemorating Valentine’s feast day in mid-month, in order to dilute the festival’s pagan rites, which included sweeping houses and sprinkling them inside with salt and spelt – a type of wheat. Women were touched with goat’s hide to become more fertile and eventually paired with a lover in a city-wide lottery-like selection.” – John R. Crane, Cortez Journal Online
From me to you, have fun touching the traditional goat hide, getting to know your yearly lottery lover and being smacked with leather by strapping Roman lads who have been properly bathed in blood and milk.
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