British Popular Customs, Present and Past / Illustrating the Social and Domestic Manners of the People. Arranged According to the Calendar of the Year.

by T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

Yorkshire.

“On Valentine’s Day,” says Clarkson (Hist. of Richmond, 1821, p. 293), “the ceremony of drawing lots called Valentines is seldom omitted. The names of a select number of one sex with an equal number of the other are put into a vessel, and every one draws a name, which is called their Valentine; and which is looked upon as a good omen of their being afterwards united.”