So St Valentine, who was potentially one of three martyrs, was beheaded. How did he become a patron saint of love? All three men lived during the 3rd century: two lived in Italy, Saint Valentine of Rome and Saint Valentine of Terni, while the third resided in a Roman province in North Africa. It doesn't matter which one we celebrate since the festival the Christian Valentine's appropriated was the Roman feast Lupercalia, a pagan fertility festival. In one of the rites, naked men raced wearing goat skins while women stood at various places along the course. Children, along the route of naked men racing from wolves in their goat skins, would choose to pair couples, who had to live together and be intimate for a year afterwards. Blame Chaucer and Shakespeare for the romanticization of Valentines, and American commercialism for the sugar-sweet cutesy heart cards with little Valentines and their arrows. Lupercalia reigns, and don't forget! Be wolves today.
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