Birds choosing their mates
Almost nothing is known for certain about Saint Valentine, and several early Christians of that name may have been blended into one, as our saints page explains. The link with ROMANCE comes much later, and it may begin with the poet Geoffrey Chaucer. In a poem written in the 1380s, he described birds gathering on Saint Valentine's Day to choose their mates, and other poets picked up the idea.
The oldest surviving valentine was written in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orléans, a French nobleman held prisoner in the Tower of London after the Battle of Agincourt. In a poem to his wife, he called her his very gentle valentine. He was kept prisoner in England for twenty-five years.
Cupid's two kinds of arrow
CUPID, a winged boy with a bow, was the Roman god of desire, the same figure the Greeks called Eros. In one of the Roman poet Ovid's stories, he carried two kinds of ARROW: a golden one that made the person it struck fall in LOVE, and a lead one that made them run from love. Our Roman mythology page covers the other gods.
Nobody knows exactly why the HEART shape looks the way it does, since it looks nothing like a real heart. It appears in medieval pictures from the 1200s and 1300s, and by the 1400s it was the familiar symbol of love.
Penny cards and chocolate boxes
Sending cards took off in Britain after 1840, when cheap postage meant anyone could send a letter for a penny, a change our stamp collecting page covers. Victorians sent lace-trimmed valentines, often unsigned, and some sent rude vinegar valentines to people they disliked. In the 1860s Richard Cadbury began selling chocolates in decorated heart-shaped boxes, which people kept afterwards to store letters. In America, Esther Howland, the daughter of a stationer in Massachusetts, began making lace valentines in the late 1840s and built a business selling thousands a year.
The Victorians also had a language of flowers, in which every bloom sent a message, and ROSES, above all red ones, meant love. A BOUQUET could say a great deal without a word being written on the CARD.
Little sugar hearts printed with messages began in America in the 1860s, when a confectioner worked out how to print words onto sweets with vegetable dye. Early messages were long and flowery; today they fit on a tiny heart. Signing a card with an X for a kiss may go back to the medieval habit of signing with a cross, sometimes kissed as a pledge, though nobody is quite sure.
Valentine's Day around the world
In Japan, women give CHOCOLATE to men on 14 February, both to sweethearts and, as a polite custom, to colleagues. A month later, on White Day, 14 March, men return the favour. In Finland and Estonia, 14 February is Friends' Day, and in Wales many people celebrate Saint Dwynwen, the Welsh patron saint of lovers, on 25 January.
The grid is full of affectionate words: SWEETHEART, DARLING, a KISS, a CUDDLE, FLOWERS, CANDY, a CRUSH, being SMITTEN, words that ADORE, FOREVER and AFFECTION.