It’s Lupercalia again Armitage world!
People seem to be very interested in sleuthing out the ancient origins of modern customs, and Valentine’s Day is no different. I had a general idea of what I’d find when I started looking more closely…and as it turns out, the origins of the romantic-y lovey dovey side of Valentine’s Day are rather murky. The holiday itself is a Christian feast day in honor of St. Valentine (or Saints Valentine…there seem to have been several martyred by the still pagan Romans), but how it came to be a festival of love and lovers and it’s possible connection to any ancient pagan rite is much less clear.
It is not uncommon to find Christian festival days coinciding with ancient ones…in fact, I came across entries from several rather irate atheists who are really put out that the Christian church has routinely glommed on to pagan festival days for it’s own nefarious…
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Ancient Armitage 
Happy Valentine’s Day! Thanks for the info!
sorry, the comment went to the old post ..
that’s more the spirit of things i remember when researching too 🙂 i always wondered where this ocean of pink & red and chocolates and roses came from.. ek! Mind you i don’t object to chocolates as long as they are dark, but the rest, never been my kind of romance 🙂
But such ‘western’ things like Valentine’s day were never spoken of in communism :-p Neither were more native things, but traditions are never quite forgotten, so i am more familiar with things like these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A2nzian%C4%83
I could get on board with goat skins/strips.. as long as they were NOT fresh.. ew!
No worries …I’ve just been buried in family biznez today 🙂