A Reviving Festival

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22961, 12 February 1938, Page 6 (Supplement)

A Reviving Festival

Old-time Significance of St. Valentine's Day

By WHETURANGI

Come, my little sugar dear, Wash your face and curl y° ur /' And you'll be wine, and I'll be thine, And 30 good-morrow, Valentine. As 1 sat in my garden chair, I saw two birds fly in the air, And two by two, and pair by pair Which made me think of you, my dear. rTHIS quotation is the famous Islip A Valentine, cited by a past generation of swains as they sent their ladies posies on St. Valentine s Way, February 14—the "Festival of Hearts." Yet how few hearts will this year flutter at the receipt of an anonymous card or gift! For Valentine customs of giving love tokens have completely faded from this modern workaday world, although it is not so very many years since the London Post Office worked overtime on Valentines Lve. A Roman Relic In those times Valentine's Day held a very special significance. It was the day. when. shy. suitors could declare themselves under the cover of a card gaily flaunting twined hearts and delicately sentimental verses. It was the day when a girl, however maidenly and bashful, could without shame send a gift, trifling in worth but tremendous in significance, to the man she held dearest, whether he had avowed his adoration or not. And what fun it must have been to receive such a gift, to pretend to puzzle for a while over its anonymity, knowing secretly who could be"the only donor! Cards lovely with lace, with etchings finely worked, with little pictures of ladies in pantalettes and ringlets, of bluebirds and roses, symbols of happiness, of scarlet

hearts and cupids—such were the cards that we sometimes find to-day in an old treasure drawer of great-grand-mother's.

But even the giving of cards in the casual way that we send Christmas cards to odd acquaintances was a degeneration of the meaning of St. Valentine's Day, whose original customs stretched right back to B.C. Roman days. Karly in February, the Romans held a feast in honour of Juno Februalis and Pan —the feast of the Lupercalia, as it was called. This lasted for several weeks and became as riotous as only, those old pagan festivals, full of the complete and utter joy of living life to the utmost, could be. The main feature of the Lupercalia was the Ceremony of the Marriage Urn. A huge vessel was set up in the market place, and into this were thrown the names of all the nubile girls in the city. At an appointed period each of the eligible males drew out the name of a girl, who was to become his future wife. (Perhaps this was the origin of regarding marriage as a gamble?) Then came the Christian era, and the great adaptation of ancient pagan customs to the new belief. There was little connection made between the feast of the Lupercalia and any Christian rule of behaviour, but somehow