Happy Valentine’s day

Mark 4 Comments
By Wilhelmina Will (My own computer; 'tis where I drew this one) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/), FAL or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
By Wilhelmina Will (My own computer; ’tis where I drew this one) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/), FAL or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Apparently, the first bird a woman sees on Valentine’s Day tells her the type of husband she will get.  Magpies seem good news – good job they are commoner than ever!  Birds of prey seem ones to look out for but maybe crows should be avoided.

The first reference to St Valentine’s Day being associated with lovers appears to be in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Parlement of Foules.  We don’t need a parliament of the birds – but we do need a parliament that takes account of birds, bees and the rest of the wildlife that we love (on Valentine’s day and every other day of the year).

This blog is an edited version of one written three years ago for Valentine’s day.

[registration_form]

4 Replies to “Happy Valentine’s day”

  1. Difficult to understand how the first bird a single woman might see on Feb 14th would be a swift (unless she is looking for lurve in sub Saharan Africa). Or for that matter a turkey (unless she’s looking for lurve at a turkey farm).
    Interesting twoddle nonetheless.
    Thanks Mark.

    1. Sub Saharan Africa would be a great place to be waking up. ( Looking for lurve or not).
      Around here it’s more likely to be a soggy starling – unless the little Twitter bluebird counts.
      Happy Valentine’s day to all.

  2. I know I’m biased, but I thought crows were famously faithful for life – never believe what you read in the Daily Wail.

Comments are closed.