Forgotten Festival

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30056, 14 February 1963, Page 2

Forgotten Festival

Among the many annual festivals celebrating historical events is one which now passes almost unnoticed in New Zealand'—February 14, St. Valentine’s Day. But in earlier days the occasion was marked by the sending of special notes and gifts to one’s object of affection. Although the title of the day is derived from an unfortunate third-century Roman martyr, St Valentine, who met a sad death by beating and hanging, its exact origins are still rather obscure.

The only connexion seems to be that certain annual ceremonies in pre-Christian Roman times involved the haphazard selection of women as mates by a male-organised lottery system. These occasions took place during February. Pagan superstitions were replaced as Christian influence spread and the names of saints were substituted for those of women. However, the outlines of the ancient ceremonies were preserved and the practice of choosing mates on St. Valentine’s Day gradually became reciprocal between the sexes.

Reference to St. Valentine's Day abounds in English literature and music. One of the earliest known writers of valentines (described then as “poetical amorous addresses”) was Charles, Duke of Orleans, who fought at the battle of Agincourt in 1415. Others included Shakespeare, Michael Drayton and John Donne.

Samuel Pepys, too, had much to say on the subject. At this time, during the reign of Charles n, married and single persons were equally liable to be chosen as a valentine, and a present was “invariably and necessarily given to the choosing party.” Although Pepys, with typical

thoroughness, estimated his year’s valentine liabilities in the region of £5, he noted that a certain wealthy duchess once received a jewel valued at £BOO as a valentine gift. But the extravagance of the messages and gifts was not frivolous, according to historians. There was a prevalent notion that this was the day on which the birds selected their mates. In some mysterious way, this “rendered in some degree binding” the overtures of friendship begun on February 14. It was supposed, for example, that the first unmarried person of the other sex whom one met on St. Valentine’s morning was a “destined wife or husband.” Today, however, the custom is celebrated unobtrusively, if at all. St. Valentine’s Day has now become, according to one supporter, a “much degenerated festival."

Napier Candidate.—A Napier businessman, Mr A. E. Frampton, has again been selected the Social Credit Political League’s candidate for Napier at the next General Election. It will be the third time Mr Frampton has contested the seat—(PA.)