St. Valentine
(14th February)
 St. Valentine An early Christian, Valentine was a catholic priest, imprisoned, and beheaded for his beliefs. While a prisoner, he cured his jailor's daughter of blindness. She and her father subsequently converted. On the eve of his death, he is supposed to have written a note to the daughter, signing it ‘from your Valentine’. The 14th of February was believed in pagan times to be the day when birds took their mates, and thus a festival of fertility. That his feast day falls on this day in probability is the churches way of reigning in romantic adventures, and thus suppresses pagan practices.