February 12, 2007

Nevada's Online State News Journal

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Folklore:

From: John Brand's Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain: Chiefly Illustrating The Origin of Our Vulgar and Provincial Customs, Ceremonies and Superstitions, [Arranged, revised and greatly enlarged by Sir Henry Ellis], George Bell and Sons, London: 1908, vol. 1, pp. 53-62 (Original ed. 1813).

VALENTINE'S DAY. 53

VALENTINE'S DAY.

FEBRUARY 14.

            IT is a ceremony, says Bourne, never omitted among the vulgar, to draw lots, which they term Valentines, on the eve before Valentine Day. The names of a select number of one sex are, by an equal number of the other, put into some vessel; and after that every one draws a name, which, for the present, is called their Valentine, and is looked upon as a good omen of their being man and wife afterwards. He adds, there is a rural tradition, that on this day every bird chooses its mate, and concludes that perhaps the youthful part of the world hath first practised this custom, so common at this Season. This idea is thus expressed by Chaucer :—

" Nature, the vicare of the Almightie Lord,

That hote, colde, hevie, light, moist, and drie,

Hath knit by even number of accord,

In easie voice began to speak and say,

Foules, take heed of my sentence I pray,

And for your own ease in fordring of your need,

As fast as I may speak I will me speed.

54        VALENTINE'S DAY.

Ye know well, how on St. Valentine's Day,

By my statute and through my governaunce,

Ye doe these your makes, and after flue away

With hem as I pricke you with pleasaunce."

            Shakespeare, in his Midsummer Night's Dream, alludes to the old saying, that birds begin to couple on St. Valentine's Day :-

" --- St. Valentine is past ;

Begin these wood-birds but to couple now ?"

            I once thought this custom might have been the remains of an ancient superstition in the Church of Rome on this day, of choosing patrons for the ensuing year ; and that, because ghosts were thought to walk on the night of this day, or about this time, and that gallantry had taken it up when superstition at the Reformation had been compelled to let it fall.[1] Since that time I have found unquestionable authority to show that the custom of choosing Valentines was a sport practised in the houses of the gentry of England as early as the year 1476. See a letter dated February 1446, in Fenn's Paston Letters, ii. 211. Of this custom John Lydgate, the monk of Bury, makes mention, as follows, in a poem written by him in praise of Queen Catherine, consort to Henry V. MS. Hall, 2251.

" Seynte Valentine, of custom yeere by yeere

Men have an usaunce in this regioun

To loke and serche Cupide's Kalendere,

And chose theyr choyse by grete affeccioun ;

Such as ben prike with Cupides mocioun

Takyng theyr choyse as theyr sort doth hale ;

But I love oon which excellith alle."

            In the catalogue of the Poeticall Devises, &c., done by the same poet, in print and MS., preserved at the end of Speght's edition of Chaucer's works, fol. Lond. 1602, f. 376, occurs one with the title of Chusing Loves on S. Valentine's Day. " Lydgate," says Wanton, " was not only the poet of his monastery, but of the world in general. If a Disguising was intended by the Company of Goldsmiths, a Mask before his Majesty at Eltham, a Maygame for the Sheriffs and Aldermen of London, a Mumming before the Lord Mayor, a Procession of Pageants from the Creation for the Festival of

VALENTINE'S DAY. 55

Corpus Christi, or a Carol for the Coronation, Lydgate was consulted, and gave the poetry." The above catalogue mentions also, by Lydgate, " a Disguising before the Mayor of London, by the Mercers ; a Disguising before the King in the Castle of Hartford ; a Mumming before the King, at Eltham ; a Mumming before the King, at Windsore ; and a ballad given to Henry VI. and his mother on New Yeare's Day, at Hartford." Warton has also given a curious French Valentine, composed by Gower. See a curious, but by no means satisfactory, note upon this subject, by Monsieur Duchat, in the quarto edition of Rabelais, i. 393. There is an account of the manner in which St. Valentine's Day was anciently observed in France, in Goujet, Bibliothèque Francoise, ix. 266, together with some poems composed by Charles Duke of Orleans, the father of Louis XII., when prisoner in England, in honour of that festival.

            The following is one of the most elegant jeux d'esprits on this occasion that I have met with.

" To Dorinda, on Valentine's Day.

" Look how, my dear, the feather'd kind,

By mutual caresses joyn'd,

Bill, and seem to teach us two

What we to love and custom owe.

Shall only you and I forbear

To meet, and make a happy pair ?

Shall we alone delay to live ?

This day an age of bliss may give.

But ah ! when I the proffer make,

Still coyly you refuse to take

My heart I dedicate in vain,

The too mean present you disdain.

Yet, since the solemn time allows

To choose the object of our vows,

Boldly I dare profess my flame,

Proud to be yours by any name."

Satyrs of Boileau Imitated. 1696, p. 101.[2]

56        VALENTINE'S DAY.

            Herrick has the following in his Hesperides, p. 172 :—

" To his Valentine on S. Valentine's Day.

" Oft have I heard both youth and virgins say,

Birds chuse their mates, and couple too, this day,

But by their flight I never can divine

When I shall couple with my Valentine."

            In Dudley Lord North's Forest of Varieties, 1645, p. 61, is a letter to his brother, he says, " A lady of wit and qualitie, whom you well know, would never put herself to the chance of a Valentine, saying that shee would never couple herselfe but by choyce. The custome and charge of Valentines is not ill left, with many other such costly and idle customes, which by a tacit generall consent wee lay downe as obsolete." In Carolina, or Loyal Poems, by Thomas Shipman, p. 135, is a copy of verses, entitled, " The Rescue, 1672. To Mrs. D.C., whose name being left after drawing Valentines, and cast into the fire, was snatcht out."

" I, like the angel, did aspire

Your Name to rescue from the fire.

My zeal succeeded for your name,

But I, alas ! caught all the flame

A meaner offering thus suffic'd,

And Isaac was not sacrific'd."

            I have searched the legend of St. Valentine, but think there is no occurrence in his life that could have given rise to this ceremony. Wheatley, in his Illustration of the Common Prayer, 1848, p. 57, tells us that St. Valentine "was a man of most admirable parts, and so famous for his love and charity, that the custom of choosing Valentines upon his Festival (which is still practised) took its rise from thence." I know not how my readers will be satisfied with this learned writer's explication. He has given us no premises, in my opinion, from which we can draw any such conclusion. Were not all the saints supposed to be famous for their love and charity ? Surely he does not mean that we should understand the word love here as implying gallantry !

            In the British Apollo, 1708, vol. i. No. 3, we read,-..

Why Valentine's a day to choose

A mistress, and our freedom loose,

VALENTINE'S DAY. 57

May I my reason interpose,

The question with an answer close,

To imitate we have a mind,

And couple like the winged kind."

            In the same work, vol. ii. No. 2, 1709 :—" Question : In chusing Valentines (according to custom), is not the party chusing (be it man or woman) to make a present to the party chosen? Answer : We think it more proper to say, drawing of Valentines, since the most customary way is for each to take his or her lot—and chance cannot be termed choice. According to this method the obligations are equal, and therefore it was formerly the custom mutually to present, but now it is customary only for the gentlemen."

            The learned Moresin tells us that at this festival the men used to make the women presents, as, upon another occasion, the women used to do to the men : but that presents were made reciprocally on this day in Scotland. ,

            Gay has left us a poetical description of some rural ceremonies used on the morning of this day :

" Last Valentine, the day when birds of kind

Their paramours with mutual chirpings find,

I early rose, just at the break of day,

Before the sun had chas'd the stars away :

A-field I went, amid the morning dew,

To milk my kine (for so should house-wives do),

Thee first I spied, and the first swain we see,

In spite of Fortune, shall our true love be."

            Pennant, in his Tour in Scotland, tells us, that in February young persons draw Valentines, and from thence collect their future fortune in the nuptial state ; and Goldsmith, in his Vicar of Wakefield, describing the manners of some rustics, tells us they sent true-love knots on Valentine morning.[3]

58        VALENTINE'S DAY.

            Lewis Owen, in his work entitled the Unmasking of all Popish Monks, Friers, and Jesuits, 1628, p. 97, speaking a its being " now among the Papists as it was heretofore among the heathen people," says that the former " have as many saints, which they honour as gods, and every one have their several charge assigned unto them by God, for the succour of men, women, and children, yea, over countries, commonwealths, cities, provinces, and churches ; nay, to help oves, et boves, et cetera pecora campi :" and instances, among many others, "S. Valentine for Lovers."

            We find the following curious species of divination in the Connoisseur, as practised on Valentine's Day or Eve. "Last Friday was Valentine's Day, and the night before I got five bay-leaves, and pinned four of them to the four corners of my pillow, and the fifth to the middle ; and then, if I dreamt of my sweetheart, Betty said we should be married before the year was out. But, to make it more sure, I boiled an egg hard, and took out the yolk, and filled it with salt ; and when I went to bed, eat it shell and all, without speaking or drinking after it. We also wrote our lovers' names upon bits of paper, and rolled them up in clay, and put them into water, and the first that rose up was to be our Valentine. Would you think it ?—Mr. Blossom was my man. I lay a-bed and shut my eyes all the morning till he came to our house ; for I would not have seen another man before him for all the world."

            Grose explains Valentine to mean the first woman seen by a man, or man seen by a woman, on St. Valentine's Day, the 14th of February. [Mr. Halliwell, in his Dictionary, p. 907, says the name drawn by lots was the Valentine of the writer, and quotes the following from the MS. Harl. 1735 :--

" Thow it be ale other wyn,

Godys blescyng have he and myn,

My none gentyl volontyn,

Good Tomas the frere."

            On Valentine's Day, 1667, Pepys says, " This morning came up to my wife's bedside, I being up dressing myself, little Will Mercer to her Valentine, and brought her name written upon blue paper, in gold letters done by himself, very pretty ; and we were both well pleased with it. But I am also this year my wife's Valentine, and it will cost £5, but that

VALENTINE'S DAY. 59

I must have laid out if we had not been Valentines." He afterwards adds, " I find that Mrs. Pierce's little girl is my Valentine, she having drawn me; which I was not sorry for, it easing me of something more that I must have given to others ; But here I do first observe the fashion of drawing of mottos as well as names ; so that Pierce, who drew my wife, did also draw a motto, and this girl drew another for me. What mine was I forgot; but my wife's was, most courteous and most fair ;' which, as it may be used, or an anagram upon each name, might be very pretty. One wonder I observed to-day, that there was no music in the morning to call up our new married people, which is very mean methinks."]

            From the following lines in Bishop Hall's Satires, iv. 1, it would seem that Valentine has been particularly famous for chastity :—

" Now play the Satyre whoso list for me,

Valentine self, or some as chaste as hee."

            From Douce's manuscript notes I learn that Butler, in his Lives of the Saints, says, " To abolish the heathen, lewd, superstitious custom of boys drawing the names of girls, in honour of their goddess Februata Juno, on the 15th of February, several zealous pastors substituted the names of Saints in billets given on that day." See his Account of St. Valentine. And in vol. i. Jan. 29, he says, that " St. Frances de Sales severely forbad the custom of Valentines, or giving boys in writing the names of girls to be admired and attended on by them ; and to abolish it, he changed it into giving billets with the names of certain Saints, for them to honour and imitate in a particular manner." But quaere this custom among the Romans above referred to.

            Herrick, in his Hesperides, p. 61, speaking of a bride, says,—

" She must no more a-maying ;

Or by Rose-buds divine

Who'l be her Valentine ?"

            Misson, in his Travels in England, translated by Ozell, p. 330, says, " On the Eve of the 14th of February, St. Valentine's Day, a time when all living nature inclines to Couple, the young folks in England and Scotland too, by a very

60        VALENTINE'S DAY.

ancient custom, celebrate a little festival that tends to the same end. An equal number of maids and batchelors get together, each writes their true or some feigned name upon separate billets, which they roll up, and draw by way of lots, the maids taking the men's billets, and the men the maids' ; so that each of the young men lights upon a girl that he calls his Valentine, and each of the girls upon a young man which slte calla her's. By this means each has two Valentines : but the man sticks faster to the Valentine that is fallen to him, than the Valentine to whom he is fallen. Fortune having thus divided the company into so many couples, the Valentines give balls and treats to their mistresses, wear their billets several days upon their bosoms or sleeves, and this little sport often ends in love. This ceremony is practised differently in different counties, and according to the freedom or severity of Madam Valentine. There is another kind of Valentine, which is the first young man or woman that chance throws in your way in the street or elsewhere on that day.

            [In Norfolk it is the custom for children to " catch" each other for Valentines ; and if there are elderly persons in the family who are likely to be liberal, great care is taken to catch them. The mode of catching is by saying " Good morrow, Valentine ;" and if they can repeat this before they are spoken to, they are rewarded with a small present. It must be done, however, before sun-rise ; otherwise, instead of a reward, they are told they are sun-burnt, and are sent back with disgrace Does this illustrate the phrase sun- burned in Much Ado About Nothing ?]

            [In Oxfordshire the children go about collecting pence, singing-

" Good morrow, Valentine,

First 'tis yours, then 'tis mine,

So please give me a Valentine."]

            In Poor Robin's Almanack, for 1676, that facetious observer of our old customs tells us opposite to St. Valentine's Day, in February,-

" Now Andrew, Anthony, and William,

For Valentines draw Prue, Kate, Jilian."

            [The same periodical, for the year 1757, has the following verses on this day :—

VALENTINE'S DAY. 61

This month bright Phoebus enters Pisces,

The maids will have good store of kisses,

For always when the sun comes there,

Valentine's Day is drawing near,

And both the men and maids incline

To chuse them each a Valentine ;

And if a man gets one he loves,

He gives her first a pair of gloves ;

And, by the way, remember this,

To seal the favour with a kiss.

This kiss begets more love, and then

That love begets a kiss again,

Until this trade the man doth catch,

And then he does propose the match ;

The woman's willing, tho' she's shy,

She gives the man this soft reply,

' I'll not resolve one thing or other,

Until I first consult my mother.'

When she says so, 'tis half a grant,

And may be taken for consent."

            This is still one of the best observed of our popular festivals, and the extraordinary length to which the custom of Valentine letter-writing is carried may be gathered from the following enumeration of the letters which passed through the London post-office on St. Valentine's Day, 1847, vastly exceeding the usual average, and principally owing to this practice. " Monday being the celebration of St. Valentine's day, an extraordinary number of letters passed through the post-office. Not less than 150,000 letters of all descriptions, 'besides 20,000 newspapers, were delivered at nine in the morning by the general post letter-carriers, while in the London district office the numbers stood thus :—At the ten o'clock delivery 25,000, and during the successive turns' of the duty, 175,000 were stamped, assorted, and delivered, forming II total of 200,000 district letters during the day. Independently of these numbers, not less than 12,000 letters and 5,000 newspapers were received by the midday mails and delivered throughout the metropolis, and at night not fewer than

120,000 newspapers were despatched, and 60,000 letters ; the

grand total, therefore, of letters and newspapers passing through the post-office stands as follows :—Letters 422,000; newspapers, 145,000."

            In an old English ballad, the lasses are directed to pray

62        COLLOP, OR SHROVE MONDAY.

cross-legged to St. Valentine for good luck. In some parts of England the poorer classes of children array themselves fantastically, and visit the houses of the wealthy, singing,-

" Good morning to you, Valentine,

Curl your locks as I do mine,

Two before and three behind,

Good morrow to you, Valentine."]