Valentine's Day Gift

I’ll share a few fun facts that I found on the internet about St. Valentine's Day.

• About 3% send Valentine gifts to their pet
• Each year, over 50 million roses are given for Valentine's Day.
• On Valentine’s Day twist the stem of an apple while reciting five or six names, then at the moment the stem breaks, the one whose name was recited will be your spouse.
• On Valentine’s Day counting the number of seeds found inside an apple indicates the number of children you will have.
• You will marry a cheapskate if you see a squirrel on Valentine’s Day.
• On St. Valentine’s Day, you will marry a millionaire if you see a goldfinch, if you see a robin, you will marry a crime fighter, if you see a flock of doves, your marriage will be happy and peaceful.

There’s much more, but I’ll stop here, with the brighter side of Valentine’s Day and look at the February month of love magic and ancient Pagan celebrations.                                                  

Roman’s most ancient festival was a mid-February holiday called Lupercalia (Latin for wolf) when many of the noble youths and officials ran through the city naked. They physically abused infertile women believing it would help make babies. At the end of the celebration, they covered their bodies with blood from sacrificial goats and a dog which were thought to have the strongest sexual instinct for sacrifice to the god of fertility.

St. Valentine’s Day was named after Saint Valentine, the saint exalted as a patron of love and happy marriages. Then history gets a somewhat muddy. During the Roman Empire in the 3^rd century, Emperor Claudius II (known as Claudius the Cruel) on February 14, executed two Valentines in the name of Christianity. The first was Valentine of Rome who was said to have married people illegally. The second execution was Valentine of Terni who was a spiritual leader and faith healer. Sometimes within the next two hundred years, Pope Gelasius I purified the month of February, abolishing the Lupercalia celebration (the one mentioned above), leading to St. Valentine’s Day. 

Now, fast forward to Chicago, 1929, February 14, St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. This day of compassion and love was filled with murder, abuse and failed romances.

While doing some research for my first Yellow Creek novel, Secret Past, I found a St. Valentine’s Day Massacre that took place during the days of lawlessness and violence. The crime lord Al Capone gunned down his rivals on Valentine’s Day. Lining seven of Bugs Moran’s men up against the wall, firing into them seventy rounds of ammo.  Though no one was caught or brought to trial for murder, Capone was labelled the most notorious gangster, making him the “Public Enemy No 1.” Ironically, the man that instigated the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre was sent to jail for evasion of federal income tax.

Here’s a few quotes to bright up or thoughts for St. Valentine's Day.  I found on this site: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_valentinesday.html

Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey.  Lord Byron

If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you. A.A. Milne

If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love. Maya Angelou

They invented hugs to let people know you love them without saying anything. Bill Keane

Valentine Gift for you, 
To wish all  my friends a Happy Valentine's Day, I have the first Silver Sage Creek Book,
Better She Die on for FREE, download today at AMAZON.  

Regardless of the Valentine’s Day history, it is a day we now celebrate those we love with gifts of flowers and chocolates.

 Happy Valentine's Day

Judy