IT IS a well known fact not always appreciated in this country that wolves are astute observers of the weather. When they howl and lurk near populated areas, it is a sure sign that a storm is on the way or, as the Greek poet Aratus of Soli put it many years ago
When through the dismal night the lone wolf howls,
Or when at eve around the house he prowls,
And thrown familiar, seeks to make his bed,
Careless of man, in some out lying shed
Then mark! -ere thrice Aurora shall arise
A horrid storm will sweep the blackened skies.
But it is also thanks to a wolf that today we celebrate St Valentine's Day. Romulus and Remus, the abandoned infant founders of the city of Rome, were suckled by a she wolf in a cave that was subsequently called the Lupercal.
When, in due course, the Romans held a festival of fertility on February 15th each year, participants gathered near the Lupercal and the rituals were known as Lupercalia. These involved the sacrifice of animals to appropriate gods after which two youths, smeared with the sacrificial blood, raced through the Roman streets with strips of goat hide in their hands.
Women who placed themselves in their path so as to receive gentle blows from the accoutrements were guaranteed fertility.
Shakespeare has the young Mark Anthony take part in such a race in Julius Caesar.
Forget not in your speed, Antonius, the doomed dictator shouts,
To touch Calpurnia, for all our elders say,
The barren touched in this holy chase
Shake off their sterile curse.
With the coming of Christianity, festivities with Lupercalian connections continued to be held around this time of year and became associated with the feast of Valentine.
In medieval times, however, they acquired a more romantic theme, and shrewd observers of the natural world found in it a justification for their ardour. As Robert Herrick has it
Oft have I heard both youths and virgins say,
Birds choose their mates, and couple too, today.
All this amorous frivolity, however, has nothing to do with either of the two holy gentlemen remembered as St Valentine. One was a priest of Rome who, despite one or two spectacular miracles, was clubbed to death in AD270 for harbouring persecuted Christians.
The other Valentine, Bishop of Terni a few years later, also came to a bad end he was martyred for his adherence to the new religion. Neither, as far as we know, had any interest in affaires de coeur.