Who is St Valentine? Most famous of all the saints who preside over love is Valentine.

St Valentine was, according to one legend, a young priest who defied an edict of the Emperor Claudius II that soldiers should not be allowed to marry as it made them poor fighters. St Valentine conducted the weddings of a number of young soldiers and was executed on 14 February 269 CE, thereafter becoming the patron saint of lovers.

You will find alternative explanations for the arrest and execution of St Valentine, but this is my favourite and the most romantic. It is said that while Valentine was imprisoned prior to his execution, he restored the sight of the jailer’s blind daughter and that she fell in love with him. Legend adds that before he was taken to his death, he wrote on the wall a message for his love: ‘Always, your Valentine’ (in Latin of course).

Many Valentine’s Day customs derive from the earlier pagan Lupercalia, a Roman festival of love and fertility festival that took place on the eve and day of 15 February. Lupercalia was dedicated to the goddess she-wolf Lupa, who suckled the twins Romulus and Remus, later the founders of Rome. On this day, unmarried girls and young men performed love and sex rites in the Grotto of the She-Wolf in order to bring fertility to animals, land and people.

The festival develops

With the advent of Christianity, Christian festivals were grafted on to the old pagan rituals and gradually the celebrations on February 14 became dedicated solely to St Valentine and not his wilder pagan ancestors. There was a mediaeval custom on Valentine’s Eve of casting lots to choose a Valentine.
Young unmarried men or women would put into a container an equal number of names of the opposite sex and the chosen name picked out by a young man would determine his partner for the Valentine celebrations and hopefully eternal bliss. Young men would wear the slip of paper with the girl’s name on their sleeves (one explanation for the old European saying ‘wearing your heart on your sleeve’).
February 14 has yet another love connection. It is the day on which birds are said to choose their mates, according to an old poem written by Geoffrey Chaucer in mediaeval times. If the first bird you see on Valentine’s morning is blue, it is said that your love will be lasting. If you see a crow or blackbird you will marry a clergyman or woman, a robin or thrush a sailor, a wren you will have many children but may be short of money, any yellow bird someone rich, a solitary magpie a quarrelling partner and a flock of doves of pigeons bliss in every way.

Valentine Day spells

A St Valentine’s seed ritual to find out who you will marry

This seed ritual is found throughout Europe and Scandinavia, and may be one of the oldest love rituals in existence. Any type of seed may be used such as sunflower or mixed bird seed. The birds will carry the seeds away, dropping some which will may flower. I have a splendid sunflower crop in my garden as a result of a friend doing this spell. Traditionally the spell-caster ran around a churchyard, but you can use a garden or any open space. Grass seed is excellent if your lawn is a bit bald after the winter.

You will need

A container of seeds

Timing

Midnight on St Valentine’s eve (February 13–14). You may need to modify the timing for safety purposes.

The spell

1. Go into a churchyard (or your garden or any area of open land) at midnight. Throw the seed over your shoulder, as you do so saying:

I scatter seed in love;
This seed in love I sow
He that is my true love,
Come after me and
Stay as it grows
Like my love for you

2. Look over your right shoulder and you will see a vision in your mind’s eye of the future, with your love walking across the land where the flowers or grass have grown from your seeds. You may recognize him or her. If not, close your eyes and let a name come into your head spontaneously. It may be someone you know.

3. Go home and go to bed. You will hopefully dream of yourself and your love together in the summer and be drawn together in love in the months before the summer comes.

A Valentine’s Day flower love charm

This is a European charm based on the coming of the first spring flowers, a time when fertility rites were traditionally performed to celebrate the awakening of the earth, even if snow is still on the ground. The yellow crocus is the flower of St Valentine. By Christian times wearing a crocus on Valentine’s Day had become a romantic gesture. If you are not yet settled in love or are having relationship problems, try this spell.

You will need

A yellow crocus or a yellow early spring flower such as a daffodil or a yellow rose (adapt this flower to whatever yellow flower blooms naturally at this time of year where you live or you can buy at a local flower shop or supermarket on 13th).

Timing

Valentine’s Day (February 14), as soon as you go outdoors.

The spell

1. Before you go outdoors for the first time on St Valentine’s Day, fasten the yellow crocus or yellow flower in your buttonhole or in your hair, as you do so, saying three times:

St Valentine, the lover’s friend,
I ask this flower my love to send.

Before the end of the day, it is said you will have met or heard from someone who could make you happy (or a person through whom you will meet new love).In reality it make take longer especially if you have been hurt in love before, but the spell opens up your own love energies and sets up telepathic signals to bring you lasting happiness. It can also renew love of you have quarrelled or even bring back an old lover

A spell to discover who has sent you a Valentine’s card

The practice of sending Valentine’s love notes, often illustrated, began in the early 1300s. Hand-cut, illustrated Valentine’s messages survive from as early as the 1500s. The first Valentine’s card was printed in 1761.

Superstition has it that we should not attempt to find out the identity of the sender of a Valentine’s card, and, indeed, it has always been considered very unlucky to write your name on a Valentine’s card you send.
On the other hand, if you have received a beautiful card with words of love and want to know the identity of the sender, it would seem the waste of a good opportunity to let superstition stand in your way. And if you still need convincing, because you carry out this ritual after sunset on a day after the event it does not count – that is, according to the English astrologer who lived in the 1800s and called himself Zadkiel
The red ink used in this spell was traditionally blood. I have made this modification because I personally have distaste for blood in spells. It is possible to buy a magical red ink called ‘pigeon blood’ in more reputable New Age stores or on line that is made entirely from plant materials. The quill pen was originally a crow’s feather, but these may be hard to come by.

You will need

A quill pen or any ink pen; red ink; the anonymous Valentine’s card. If you have only a red ink ballpoint pen that will do but is not quite so romantic.

Timing

Just before midnight on the first Friday night after you receive the Valentine card (a week after Valentine’s Day itself if that falls on a Friday).

The spell

1. Using the quill or fountain pen and the red ink, write on the back of the card the day, hour and year of your birth; the current year; the moon’s age (i.e. the day of the current 28 or 29-day lunar cycle) ; and the star sign into which the sun has entered, for example Aries. You can get the latter two pieces of information from the astrology section of a newspaper or from the Internet.

2. Rest the card on or in your left shoe and put both card and shoe under your bed, level with your heart. (The original spell suggests sleeping with the shoe under your pillow.)

3. Go to bed. Lie on your left side and repeat three times:

St Valentine pray condescend
To be this night a maiden’s friend;
Let me now my lover see,
Be he of high or low degree.
By a sign his station show,
Be it weal or be it woe.
Let him come to my bedside
And my fortunes thus decide.

During the next week you will discover the identity of your secret Valentine-sender, either in a dream or in waking life. This was of course written when every girls’ greatest ambition was to find her love. But it works just as well for lovelorn guys and same sex partnerships

Finally if you are in a committed relationship, A Valentine’s spell to renew your vows.

This can be good if you are very busy and feel that life gets in the way of your love or you have been through a difficult patch because of outside interference. It is a way of remind yourselves and each other what you most value about your love.

You will need

A large white pillar candle; 2 smaller white candles in separate holders.

Timing

February 14, in the evening

The spell

1. You and your partner should each take a separate white candle and light it, as you do so saying in turn:
These are the gifts I promise you in our life together, in good times and bad.
Then in turn, name the gifts you offer the other person in marriage or commitment.

2. Both should then simultaneously light the pillar candle from each other’s candle, as you do saying, in turn. These are the qualities I value most in you in our life together, in good times and bad. . Then in turn listing qualities you most value in each other.

3. Extinguish the separate candles one after the other, as you do so, saying in turn:
I am not separate but willingly united with you in love and fidelity, in trust and in harmony. Henceforth we two are one and so I renew my vows on this night of lovers young and old.
Leave the large candle to burn down.
May you find all find and keep love as long as the sun shines and the waters of the earth flow. But do not forget as I did for many years to love and value yourself for your unique qualities

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