Put a Little Love in Your Heart
February 15, 2024
Since Valentine’s Day is nearly upon us, I thought it would be fun to delve into the origins of the holiday. Where did it come from? Why do we celebrate it? I fully expected to uncover stories featuring chubby, naked little cherubs flying about, launching arrows and sprinkling love dust on unsuspecting humans and Greek gods or something. I was in for a rude awakening when I discovered its actual roots. According to the much-respected History Channel, Valentine's Day began as a pagan, Roman fertility festival. Who knew?
On this day, priests would sacrifice a goat for fertility and proceed to take strips of its hide, dip them in blood, and gently slap women with them. Yes, you read that correctly—they slapped women with them, gently, mind you, but slap they did. Supposedly, it was to ensure their fertility for the coming year. Wait, it gets better. Then, after being blood-slapped, the young women would place their names in a very large urn. All the bachelors would then randomly choose a name, and they would be paired with that person for the year. It's like the precursor to dating apps, I guess, but much more tenuous and with a lot less control.
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