Origin of Valentine’s day
Kanika Mahajan, Visakhapatnam
Valentine's Day, the most ooey-gooey, sappy (unofficial) holiday, is the only thing that can challenge Domino’s in being extra cheesy.
The day originates from the pagan festival of Lupercalia (lupus meaning wolf, totally not terrifying),celebrated on 15th February (later changed to the 14th in the 15th century by Pope Gelasius I), which was quite an odd festival because it started with an act of sacrifice. Priests of the god Lupercus, called the Luperci, would take off their clothes and slaughter goats in the cave Lupercal. It is also the same cave where Roman legend believes city founders Romulus and Remus were nursed by a wolf (where are all my heroes of Olympus fans at?) The Luperci would cut the goat’s skin into strips and run around the Palatine Hill in Rome, striking women with the goat’s skin (*ring* *ring* hello? Police, I would like to report harassment).
Remember that Pope from the first para? He not only changed the date but also the whole festival and its practises into Saint Valentine's day because Lupercalia celebrated a slightly more *cough* sexual *cough* kind of love.
The reason why it was named Valentine's day or more specifically Saint Valentine's day is actually related to two saints named Valentine.
The first one is responsible for the card writing tradition because he used to sign “from your Valentine” in his letters to his jailer’s daughter, whom he had befriended and, by some accounts, healed from blindness.
The second one, St. Valentine of Terni, was a bishop after whom the holiday is named. A common legend states St. Valentine defied the emperor’s orders and secretly married couples to spare the husbands from war (that’s actually sweet, usually people from history are either evil-like weird or heroic weird).
Formal messages, or valentines, appeared later in the 1500s (which is 2022-1500= 522 years, dang that's a long time. That's almost as old as Chiron.) Valentines commonly depicts Cupid, the Roman god of love, and it has become customary for young people to exchange valentines to express interest in one another (*wink* *wink*)
But all this has slowly morphed into the rose killing, the chocolate giving, and the wallet-emptying festival of grand gestures we all know and love (or well, at least the people in relationships do).
In modern day, Valentine's Day is most commonly associated with romantic love with millions of Valentine's Day cards being exchanged each year. Bouquets of flowers or single red roses are sent with romantic messages to loved ones and couples spend special time together.
Kommentare