“Good morrow, Valentine!
Parsley grows by savoury,
Savoury grows by thyme,
A new pair of gloves on Easter day.
Good morrow, Valentine!”
[18] See History and Antiquities of Weston Favell (1827, p. 6). Brand in his Pop. Antiq. mentions this custom as existing in Oxfordshire.—1849, vol. i. p. 60.
It was formerly customary for young people to catch their parents and each other on their first meeting on St. Valentine’s morning. Catching was no more than the exclamation, “Good morrow, Valentine!” and they who could repeat this before they were spoken to, were entitled to a small present from their parents or the elderly persons of the family; consequently there was great eagerness to rise early, and much good-natured strife and merriment on the occasion.[19]
[19] The custom was observed at Norfolk.—Brand, Pop. Antiq. vol. i. p. 60.
In Peterborough and in some of the villages in the northern part of the county sweet plum buns were formerly given, and I believe are still made, called Valentine buns; and these buns, I am told, are in some villages given by godfathers and godmothers to their godchildren on the Sunday preceding and the Sunday following St. Valentine’s Day.—Baker, Glossary of Northamptonshire Words and Phrases, 1854, vol. ii. p. 373.
Nottinghamshire.
Drawing lots or billets for Valentines is a custom observed in the neighbourhood of Mansfield, where a few young men and maidens meet together, and having put each their own name on a slip of paper, they are all placed together in a hat or basket, and drawn in regular rotation. Should a young man draw a girl’s name, and she his, it is considered ominous, and not unfrequently ends in real love and a wedding.—Jour. of the Arch. Assoc. 1853, vol. viii. p. 231.
Oxfordshire.
In this county the following rhymes were used:
“Good morrow, Valentine!
I be thine, and thou be’st mine,
So please give me a Valentine!”