May your Valentine’s Day be a sweet one

So just what would tickle your fancy come Valentine’s Day? Chocolates? Flowers? Your beloved looking deep into your eyes and telling you there’s noone on the face of the earth as amazing as you?

These days, flowers and chocolates are Valentine’s Day staples, but it wasn’t always so. Let’s take a look at some old-timey traditions, as revealed by an Internet search ...

The ancient Greeks and Romans believed that the first bird an unmarried woman saw on Valentine’s Day was a symbol of the kind of man she would marry. For instance, a swan meant a loyal partner was on the horizon. A dove predicted a kindhearted person would be coming along. And a blackbird indicated that a woman would marry a member of the clergy or someone who did spiritual, charitable work.

Then there was the “vinegar Valentine,” something nobody wanted to get. The Victorians not only wrote love poems, they also penned nasty notes to those from whom they wished to detach. And they didn’t pull any punches. They listed all the traits of their target that they loathed, along with a caricature illustration. Ouch!

Fortunately, the Victorians also engaged in something a bit friendlier. They would fold paper into what they called puzzle purses. The unfolding of each corner revealed an endearing poem or drawing.

The different color of roses held different meanings for the Victorians. Red symbolized love. White meant innocence. Yellow spoke of jealousy or infidelity. And flowers were used to deliver yes or no answers. Delivery with the right hand meant yes and delivery with the left meant, well, maybe next year.

During the ancient Roman festival Lupercalia, celebrated in mid-February, women would pin the name of their love interest on their shirt sleeve.

The Welsh commemorated Saint Dwynwen, their patron saint of lovers, on Jan. 25. There were flowers and chocolates, as well as the love spoon, whereby men whittled an intricately-crafted spoon for their paramour. The tradition of the love spoon began 300 years ago and continues to this day. It serves a two-fold purpose –as a marriage proposal and as a symbol of the man’s devotion.

A Victorian man would send one glove to the object of his affections, in the hope that she would wear it on Easter Sunday as a sign that she returned his love. The Victorian male also was no slouch in the card department. His cards were apt to be covered in ribbons, pressed flowers, gold and silver foil paper, and lace.

Europeans, during the Middle Ages, had some interesting ways of greeting Valentine’s Day. The identity of a girl’s future husband was determined through dreams or prophetic visions inspired by pinning sage leaves to her pillow or putting a slice of wedding cake under it. Or the girl would put letters in a bowl of water, do some chanting, and see what floated to the top.

And then, of course, there was the tradition of going to the cemetery on Valentine’s Day to look for signs and omens at midnight that would reveal the identity of one’s true love.

Ladies, you may very well get the flowers and chocolates. Or perhaps you will see a swan (for a loyal man) or a dove (for a kind man). Will you be receiving a love spoon or a glove? (Neither one is as good as chocolates, in my opinion.) Or will you be roaming the cemetery at midnight, looking for clues of a love life yet to come?

That last one is definitely not for me. I will, as usual, be snoozing in front of the TV at 8:00, maybe sooner. I doubt that any potential suitor could compete with my couch and my Samsung.