Wolf Charmer of Valentines

The Greeks and Romans called the Wolf Charmer the Lupicinus. The Lupicinus was a man skilled in singing to or communicating with wolves, convincing them not to attack domesticated animals and livestock. Over time, mythology evolved that the Lupicinus could actually turn into a wolf.

Eventually, an annual Lupercali festival developed among the Romans, celebrated on February 15, as a perpetuation of "blooding rites" in which the novice hunter is smeared with the blood of his first kill. At the Lupercali festivals, two noble-born children were blooded with the mixed blood of a sacrificial she-goat and a sacrificial dog. The blood of the she-goat represented the flocks that nourished the community and the dog's blood represented the watchful protector of the flock who would be the first to die if wolves attacked. The children's foreheads were smeared with the blended blood, which was then wiped off with wool. As they were being cleaned, they were expected to laugh, showing their fearlessness and their belief that they were protected by magic against wolves and wolfmen. The god Lupercus inspired men to dress and behave as wolves at the festival. Somewhere in time Roman secret fraternities arose known as the Luperci, who sacrificed she-goats at the entrances to their "dens." For centuries, the Luperici held annual rituals of chasing women through the streets, bearing them with leather thongs. Eventually this violent expression of eroticism mellowed into a man binding his chosen woman wrist to wrist and leading her away to his "den." Obviously, something had to change to turn this wolf-frenzy of lust into the Christian "knot" of marriage. Enter the story of Saint Valentine, who bound his parishoners not wrist to wrist but in Holy Matrimony. Into the Middle Ages, Christians in England, Scotland and France celebrated St. Valentine's Day with each young woman putting her name or mark on a bit of cloth and after mixing them well having the young men draw out the name of the woman who would be his sexual partner for the coming year. If they two youngsters hit it off, or if their parents wanted them to remain together, they would then bind themselves in a church-sanctioned union. The custom eventually spread to the young men and women of the aristocracy and the landed gentry. By the late 1400s, the upper classes of Europe and England had developed the tradition of allowing their young men to draw a “valentine” with the name of a member of the opposite sex, beside whom he would be seated at a lavish, highly decorated dinner party. Gradually, the parties gave way to a general exchange of fancy sentiments, written in flourishes and decorated with hearts, arrows, doves and cupids and cherubs, the latter two being left-over deities and icons from a more primitive time. By the 1850s, valentine cards were a commercial success, leading to the vast greeting card, jewelry, flowers and candy industry we know today.