Valentines day.. where are my cards!!!!!

Valentines Day....... how many cards are you getting.. same as me eh!!! Oh well.. such is life.. I read that 85% of cards are bought by women.. who are they sending them to I wonder.. :-) not me... that I am admiting to anyway, hee hee

Did you know that the first recorded association of Valentine's Day with romantic love is in Parlement of Foules (1382) by Geoffrey Chaucer

For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese [chose] his make [mate].

This poem was written to honor the first anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia. A treaty providing for a marriage was signed on May 2, 1381. When they were married eight months later, he was 13 or 14. She was 14. Awesome eh!!!

Chaucer's Parliament of Foules is generally set in a supposed context of an old tradition, in fact there was no such tradition before Chaucer. The speculative explanation of sentimental customs, posing as historical fact, had their origins among eighteenth-century antiquaries, notably Alban Butler, the author of Butler's Lives of Saints, and have been perpetuated even by respectable modern scholars. Most notably, "the idea that Valentin'e Day customed perpetuated those of the Roman Lupercalia has been accepted uncritically and repeated, in various forms, up to the present"

If you want to learn the Roman side of things you will find it even more interesting.. well I think so..

who ever, and wherever you are.. have a lovely, loving Valentines day.. Michael