Little Faun's Side Show : Murder, sex and breaking the law

My five year old daughter carefully wrote out around twenty valentines featuring Elsa and Anna (from the crazy popular animation "Frozen") in crooked, sometimes backward lettering, to exchange with her classmates this past week.

While adults around the world exchanged flowers, balloons, chocolates and "I love you's", traditions of love and friendship carried on from centuries ago in memorandum of Saint Valentine, a Roman priest who was martyred around 278 A.D. for performing illegal marriages.

Rebel Priest

The holiday is actually believed (by some) to go farther back. In ancient Rome pagans did Lupercalia, a festival of love and fertility celebrated February 13th-15th. Men would choose their partner's name from a box and give her a dose of his love juice. (How romantic) That was all fine and dandy until Pope Gelasius cancelled it in 496 and replaced it with Saint Valentine's Day. Cuz ya know, pagans are apparently the devil and all.

The first key party

Although an annual hedonistic swingers party just screams "LOVE", there's no evidence that connects romance to Valentine's day until Chaucer scribbled a love poem mentioning Valentines in the 14th Century. (Google "The Parliament of Fowls")

Before that, February 14th was the anniversary of that Roman priest I mentioned being beaten and beheaded. See, back in the day, Claudius II, emperor of Rome, was this bad-ass blood thirsty dude bent on fucking up your day. So bad-ass they called him Claudius the Cruel. But he needed more soldiers, and it seems a dude with a family is less into dying for his country. So this Claudius had the genius idea to ban marriage to get more soldiers and this Valentine guy, being a romantic, and a bit of a bad-ass rebel himself, was still tying knots on the sly.

Well Valentine got busted performing the dirty deed (marriage that is) and they dragged his ass (literally) to the town square and beat him to death with clubs before they chopped his head off. He was sainted and his severed, rotten skull now sits in a Roman church with a crown of flowers on it. (Gross).

And over here; Valentine's former head.

Legend has it that Valentine befriended the jailer's blind daughter and miraculously cured her, giving her sight. And on the night before his execution he left her a note and signed it "from your Valentine".

In the 18th Century, England fell in love with love, and the Valentine's Day holiday really took off. Folks started giving simple gifts along with the notes or cards to their sweethearts. And then Hallmark took over in early 20th Century and made Valentine's Day the over-rated commercial disaster it is today.

So, from hedonist sex parties, rebellious law breaking and brutal murder to over priced cards with gushy poems, pink and red carnations and little red teddy bears that squeak the chorus of well known love song, the holiday of love has changed quite a bit. (Although some of us are still down for some freaky love making and general rebellion) JS