Curious about the origin of Valentine’s Day, I searched around the web. As near as I can tell, Geoffrey Chaucer is the major culprit. In his late fourteenth century poem “Parlement of Foules”, which is about a scholar dreaming of birds vying to choose a mate, Chaucer invents, out of whole cloth, an ancient legend of a special day for lovers. The appearance of this poem was, as far as scholars can tell, the first time that St. Valentine’s day, the 14th of February, was actually linked to the idea of being a day for lovers.
Not that any of this matters to modern love birds. After all, young love looks not to the past, but to the future.
In contrast to our memories of young love. But that is another topic entirely.