Happy Valentines Day!!!
2010 Updates: THR Livefeed has ‘Lost’ Valentines …
The Victorian Valentines are so beautiful, read more about the holiday here
Cindy Adams dishes on traditional Valentine’s lore:
In Ancient Rome, St. Valentine performed marriages for the soldiers of Emperor Claudius, who’d banned the rite because he did not want emotional ties that could make his troops less bold in battle.
In the Middle Ages, folk of young ages drew names from a bowl to see who their Valentines might be. Those names were then pinned on their cuffs for a week. The forerunner of the phrase “wearing your heart on your sleeve.”
Wedding rings grew out of the custom of locking a bride in irons with the best man assigned to guard her prior to the ceremony.
Per the Times of London, every Valentine’s Day morning some unknown writes a note saying, “Are you there, Moriarty?” — addressed to Mr. Sherlock Holmes — and plops it through the letterbox of the Abbey National branch that now stands at 221B Baker Street. I don’t know why. They don’t even know why.
Old wives’ tale: Feb. 14 is the date centuries ago when migratory birds returned to England to mate.
More old wives’ tales: The first feathered friend a single maiden sees on Valentine’s Day will foretell her future mate. A bluebird is a sign he’ll be happy but poor. A crossbill means cranky and quarrelsome. Sparrow? The guy’s a farmer. Robin? He’s a sailor. Blackbird? A clergyman. And if she sees a woodpecker, the old broad will stay an old-broad spinster….
Moderate in the Middle 