The Story of Valentine's Day

Mister Luvvaman

Three St. Valentines are listed in the martyrologies of the Roman Catholic church. Even more numerous are the tales purporting to account for the traditions that grew up in association with his name.

Best and bloodiest of these dates from the reign of Emperor Claudius II of Rome. Claudius was having a difficult time persuading soldiers to join his many campaigns. Believing that the reason was Roman men did not want to leave their girlfriends or families, Claudius cancelled all marriages and engagements in Rome

There was a Christian priest named Valentine in Rome at that time. Together with another future saint, Marius, he continued to marry couples in secret. For his kindness, Valentine was apprehended and dragged before the Prefect of Rome, who condemned him to be beaten to death with clubs and beheaded. Valentine was executed on February 14 about the year 270 AD.

Legend says that St. Valentine left a farewell note for the jailer's daughter, who had befriended him during his captivity, and signed it "From Your Valentine".

There is another, much older, Roman origin for the association of February 14 with lovers. On the eve of the pagan festival of Lupercalia (held on February 15) the names of Roman girls were written on slips of paper and placed in jars.

Each young man would draw a girl's name from the jar and would then be partners for the duration of the festival with the girl he chose. What they got up to together is not recorded.

The popular customs now associated with Saint Valentine's Day are generally thought to originate in a belief, widely held in medieval England and France, that birds began to pair half way through the second month of the year.

For this reason the day was looked upon as specially consecrated to lovers and as a proper occasion for writing love letters and sending lovers' tokens. Both the French and English literatures of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries contain allusions to the practice.

In the United States, one Esther Howland is given credit for sending the first valentines. Commercial valentines were introduced in the 1800's, and the saint's day is now highly commercialised. The post office in the town of Loveland, Colorado, reputedly does big business around February 14.

Story about Yuelao

In China, god of love is called Yuelao, abbreviation of Yuexia Laoren (old man sitting in the moon light). Not like Cupid carrying bow and arrows, Yuelao draws people together with a thin red thread. Even now, the modern matchmakers also called themselves Yuelao.

There are a lot of interesting stories about Yuelao in Chinese literature, but there is one you cannot miss.

It was in the Tang Dynasty, a young man called Wei Gu met a weird old man when loitering on the streets in the night. The old man was reading some file in the moonlight, with a big bag near his feet. "What are you reading?" Wei Gu asked the old man. "People's marriage file." he answered. "Then what's in the bag?" "Red threads to tie people's ankles together. If two people (one male and one female) are connected by the red thread, no matter where they are and who they are, they will get married." Therefore Wei Gu asked the old man who would become his wife, the old man told him that his wife now was only three year old and she was the daughter of an old blind peddler who lived in the corner of that street. Wei Gu was so angry about that and sent a servant to kill the baby but only hurt the girl on her eyebrow. Ten years later, Wei Gu had become a brave warrior, and an officer would like to let his daughter marry him. The young wife was pretty, but with a scar on the eyebrow. Wei was curious and asked the reason, then finally found she was that baby and she was adopted by the officer by chance.

It is also said, Yuelao have a lot of clay figures and a marriage stone. He always wrote down people's names on the back of the figures according to his file, and connected their ankles together with the red thread, then put them on the marriage stone, for one day, that means one life, two days, then two life.