BIRD MATING DAY

Today, of course, is Valentine’s Day, that special day of the year when many people celebrate their romantic relationships and school kids across this country and probably many others exchange Valentine’s Day cards in a sort of popularity contest where whoever gets the most cards wins. (I never did, which I’m sure has scarred me for life in countless Freudian ways.)

Valentines used to be handmade and handwritten (I know some people who still do this) but have been massed produced like the one below as greeting cards since the 19th century.

It’s likely that not many know or think of the fact that the celebration of February 14 began with a totally opposite sentiment. This day started as the Feast of Saint Valentine, a commemoration of a martyr who died on this date some time in the third century. (Is it just me or is it odd that they seem to know the day on which he was killed but not the year?)

There are many different tales of who this person was and how he departed our mortal coil. One had him being executed by a Roman emperor (not surprisingly) and leaving his jailer’s daughter, a woman he purportedly cured of blindness, a goodbye noted signed “Your Valentine.”

Perhaps the most popular explanation for how we got from this to the romantic version of Valentine’s Day lays the blame at the feet of Geoffrey Chaucer. In a 14th century poem titled “Parlement of Foules,” he wrote these lines:

For this was on seynt Volantynys day

Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.

You might be thinking, as I did, what do birds making cheese have to do with Valentine’s Day? The translation, “For this was on St. Valentine’s Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate,” clears this up. So it all began with birds. One has to assume Chaucer had never actually witnessed birds mating when he wrote this verse. If he had, he might have chosen a different metaphor or leaped on the bandwagon of making bad puns like “Wooden Shoe Be My Valentine?” or “Ewe and Me” or gone to extremes like showing a dog farting in a sleeping man’s face with the words “Best Valentine Greetings from One Who Cares.” On second, thought, the birds will do just fine.

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Visit Kim Pederson’s blog RatBlurt: Mostly Random Short-Attention-Span Musings