Lovebirds

A sweet little cardinal and his mate have been frequenting the bush outside our kitchen window this winter. Thanks to Geoffrey Chaucer, there is a tradition that birds choose their mates on St. Valentine's Day:

"For this was on seynt Valentynes day,
Whan every foul cometh ther to chese his make,
Of every kinde, that men thenke may;
And that so huge a noyse gan they make,
That erthe and see, and tree, and every lake
So ful was, that unnethe was ther space
For me to stonde, so ful was al the place."

--from "The Parliament of Fowles" by Geoffrey Chaucer, c. 1382

Apparently, Chaucer was responsible for the romance we now associate with St. Valentine's Day. Very little is known of the actual martyr(s) the day honors -- according to our Encyclopedia of Saints, Valentine was a Roman priest and physician, martyred c. 269 A.D. during the reign of Emperor Claudius II. Another Valentine (possibly the same man) was bishop of Terni, near Rome. The legends that have sprung up around St. Valentine (he fell in love with his jailer's daughter and sent her a last message before his death signed 'From your Valentine'; he secretly married couples during Claudius II's ban on marriage, etc.) seem to be just that -- legends.

Anyway, our cardinal and his "wife" were spotted cosily sitting near each other amidst the branches this morning, but they have been together all winter, so I think that blows Chaucer's tradition out of the water. :)