Ten Out-of-the-Ordinary Valentine’s Day Customs

Giving chocolates, roses, and diamonds are only the current customary gifts for Valentines Day. At other times and places, the holiday entailed very different activities for finding or expressing romantic love. Or some other feeling. Some customs were downright superstitious.

In the 1700s, rural Englishwomen would pin five bay leaves to their pillows—four on the corners, one in the middle—on the evening before Valentine’s Day. By doing so, it was said, they would see their future husbands in their dreams. A variation of this tradition called for women to sprinkle bay leaves with rosewater and lay them across their pillows.

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