Legend I

In ancient Roman times, February 14th was a holiday set aside to show respect for Yona. Yona was the queen of the Roman gods, and the Romans honored her as the god of both women and marriage. The next day, February 15, was known as "Lupusala," a festival to honor the other gods and goddesses under Yona's rule.

In ancient Rome, the lives of young men and women were kept strictly separate. However, on the festival of Lupasara, lads were allowed to choose the name of a girl of their choice to be engraved on a vase. This way, when the festival was over, the lad could dance with the girl of his choice and celebrate the festival. If the chosen girl was also interested in the boy, they would be paired up and eventually they would fall in love and walk into the church together to get married. This is why the 14th of February is celebrated as Valentine's Day.

Legend Two

Valentine's Day is called St. Valentine's Day in English. Literally, it is hard to see any connection between the Chinese and Western names. There is a moving story hidden inside. In the third century AD, there was a tyrant named Claudius in ancient Rome. At that time, the Roman internal and external wars were frequent, in order to replenish the soldiers, the tyrant ordered: all men of a certain age, must enter the army to serve the country. Since then, husbands left their wives, teenagers left their lovers, and the whole of Rome was shrouded in long-lasting lovesickness. However, tyranny could not forbid love. Not far from the palace of the tyrant, there was a very beautiful temple. The monk Valentine lived here. The Romans revered him, and men, women, and children, rich and poor, would always gather around him to hear Valentine's prayers in front of the altar's roaring fire.

The wars of ancient Rome were constant, and the tyrant Claudius enlisted a great many of his citizens to go to war, and there was much discontent. Men were reluctant to leave their families, and lads could not bear to be separated from their lovers. Claudius was furious and ordered that no marriages should be celebrated, and that all betrothals should be broken off at once. Many young men thus bid farewell to their loved ones and went off to war in grief. The young girls were also depressed and saddened by the loss of their loved ones.

Valentine was very saddened by the tyrant's abusive behavior. When a couple came to the temple to ask for his help, Valentini quietly married them before the sacred altar. Word spread and many people came to be partnered with Valentine's help. Word finally reached the palace and reached the ears of the tyrant. Once again, Klaudos was furious, and he ordered his soldiers to storm the temple and drag Valentine away from a couple in the middle of a wedding ceremony and throw him into a dungeon. The people begged in vain for the tyrant's impeachment. Valentine finally died in the dungeon from his torture.

Saddened friends buried him in the church of St. Pula. The day was February 14th, and the year was 270 AD.

Legend III

Legend has it that Valentine was one of the earliest Christians in a time when being a Christian meant danger and death. To cover other martyrs, Valentine was captured and thrown into a prison cell. There he healed the blind eyes of the warden's daughter. When the tyrant heard of this miracle, he was so terrified that he had Valentine beheaded. According to the legend, on the morning of the execution, Valentine wrote an affectionate farewell letter to the warden's daughter, addressed to her: From your Valentine. On that day, the blind daughter planted an apricot tree with red flowers at his grave to send her love, and that day was February 14th.

Since then, Christianity has designated February 14 as Valentine's Day SMS.

Legend 4

Historians prefer to get to the bottom of the matter, and their renditions of Valentine's Day seem convincing. In fact, far earlier than 270 A.D., when the foundations of the city of Rome were first laid, the surrounding area was still a wilderness with packs of wolves roaming around. Among the gods worshipped by the Romans, Lupercus, the god of animal husbandry, was in charge of protecting the shepherds and their flocks. Every year in mid-February, the Romans celebrated Lupercus with great ceremony. At that time the calendar was slightly later than it is today, so the festival was actually a celebration of the coming spring. Others say the festival was a celebration of Faunus, a god who was similar to the ancient Greek god Pan, a goat-footed man with horns on his head, who was in charge of animal husbandry and agriculture.

The origins of the festival are too ancient to be confirmed by scholars in the first century BC. But the importance of the festival is undeniable.

For example, it is recorded that Mark Antony conferred the crown on Julius Caesar in 44 BC.

On February 15, monks gather at a cave on the Palantine Hill in Rome, where the founders of the city (Romilus and Remus) are said to have been raised by a she-wolf. Among the festivities of the festival was the running through the streets of the young nobles, armed with sheepskin whips. Young women would gather on the sides of the streets and pray for the whip to strike them on the head. It was believed that this would make it easier for them to have children. In Latin, the whip was called februa and the lash was called fabruatio, both actually meaning 'purity'. This is how February got its name.

With the expansion of Roman power in Europe, the custom of shepherding festivals was brought to what is now France and Britain. One of the most enjoyable festivities was similar to the color lottery. The names of young women were placed in a box and young men came forward to draw them. The drawn pair became lovers for a year or more.

The rise of Christianity caused the custom of honoring the gods to fade. Not wanting people to give up the joys of the festival, the clergy changed Lupercalia to Valentine's Day and moved it to February 14th. In this way, the legend of the Valentine friars and the ancient festival were naturally combined. The festival was most popular in medieval England. After the names of unmarried men and women were drawn, they would exchange gifts with each other, and the woman would become the man's Valentine for the year. The woman's name would be embroidered on the man's sleeve, and it would then become the man's sacred duty to care for and protect that woman.

The Pope declared February 14th Valentine's Day in about 498 AD. This Roman form of marriage was considered illegitimate by Christians. During the Middle Ages, in England and France, it was commonly believed that February 14 was the season for mating birds. Thus an addition was made to this day that it should be a day of romance. The earliest Valentine's Day gift was a poem written by the Duke of Orleans, Charles, to his wife from his prison in the Tower of London. For he had been captured at the Battle of Agincourt. Now this blessing, written in 1415, is in the British Museum in London. A few years later, King Henry V hired John Lydgate to write a tune for Catherine of Valois as a Valentine's Day gift.