[641] See "British Popular Customs," p. 473.
_St. Valentine's Day_ (Feb. 14). Whatever may be the historical origin of this festival, whether heathen or Christian, there can be no doubt of its antiquity. According to an old tradition, to which Chaucer refers, birds choose their mates on this day; and hence, in "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (iv. 1), Theseus asks:
"Good morrow, friends. St. Valentine is past: Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?"
From this notion, it has been suggested, arose the once popular practice of choosing valentines, and also the common belief that the first two single persons who meet in the morning of St. Valentine's day have a great chance of becoming wed to each other. This superstition is alluded to in Ophelia's song in "Hamlet" (iv. 5):
"To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day, All in the morning betime, And I a maid at your window, To be your valentine."
There seems every probability that St. Valentine's day, with its many customs, has come down to us from the Romans, but was fathered upon St. Valentine in the earlier ages of the Church in order to Christianize it.[642] In France St. Valentine's was a movable feast, celebrated on the first Sunday in Lent, which was called the _jour des brandons_, because the boys carried about lighted torches on that day.
[642] "Notes and Queries," 6th series, vol. i. p. 129.
_Shrove-Tuesday._ This day was formerly devoted to feasting and merriment of every kind, but whence originated the custom of eating pancakes is still a matter of uncertainty. The practice is alluded to in "All's Well that Ends Well" (ii. 2), where the clown speaks of "a pancake for Shrove-Tuesday."[643] In "Pericles" (ii. 1) they are termed "flap-jacks," a term used by Taylor, the Water-Poet, in his "Jack-a-Lent Workes" (1630, vol. i. p. 115): "Until at last by the skill of the cooke it is transformed into the form of a flap-jack, which in our translation is called a pancake." Shrovetide was, in times gone by, a season of such mirth that _shroving_, or _to shrove_, signified to be merry. Hence, in "2 Henry IV." (v. 3), Justice Silence says:
"Be merry, be merry, my wife has all; For women are shrews, both short and tall; 'Tis merry in hall, when beards wag all, And welcome merry shrove-tide. Be merry, be merry."