oh, VD day...

[lorienelfstar]

hey, remember when we were in catholic school and they told us to call it "SAINT valentine's day," because it was a saint's feast day? i remember being told he was a priest who was martyred for secretly marrying young catholic couples. wikipedia (oh, so reliable...?) suggests *nothing* is known of his life, and that the church moved his feast day

Comments

V-Day!

[libgirl1]

More behind the history of Valentine's day: Legend says that in ancient Rome, a festival called Lupercalia was celebrated beginning Feb. 15th. It was basically a spring fertility festival that honored Romulus and Remus. One of the events that took place during this festival was cutting up goat hides, dipping them in goat & dog blood and slapping women with them to make them more fertile. There was also a "lottery" where the single women would put their names into a jar and each bachelor would draw a name. The woman whose name he drew was his sexual partner for the year. At the end of the year, he had the option of marrying her if he had found her pleasing to him. Later the Catholic church tried to Christianize the holiday by making it a saints feast day and having the young men draw names of saints. The saint they drew was who they should try to mirror their actions after for that year. Strangly enough, the men never were quite as excited about this modified lottery.

Re: V-Day!

[lorienelfstar]

ahhhhahahaha...no kidding! you sort of have to figure any type of celebration that started after christianity was legalized is going to be some co-opted pagan ritual (like christmas/yule and easter/vernal fertility rites).

but i think we should bring back the thing about goat & dog blood.

Re: V-Day!

[libgirl1]

A totally different kind of bitch slap!

Re: V-Day!

[lorienelfstar]

oh man, remember two inches from a bitch slap? when are we gonna have our first band practice? :P