Mihaela

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Love is the same everywhere

Love… Who can describe this wonderful feeling that everyone encounters at least once in their
lives. This feeling that makes you to live in a wonderful world, a world that has only two members.
Romanians are the luckiest people because they may be madly in love twice a year because they
celebrate Valentine’s Day and their traditional holiday Dragobete.
Every February the 14th candy, flowers and gifts are exchanged between lovers, all in the name
of Sf. Valentine. This represents the symbol of love for those who are in love. Hundreds of years ago in
England, many children were dressed up as adults on Valentine's Day. They used to go singing from
home to home. Some verses of their song were:
Good morning to you, valentine;
Curl your locks as I do mine -
Two before and three behind.
Good morning to you, valentine.
St. Valentine’s Day is considered to be a Christian and a Roman tradition. One legend contends
that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Caludius II
decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wife and families, he outlaw marriage for
young men, his crop for potential soldiers. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied
Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine’s actions
were discovered, Claudius ordered that he to be put to death.
Ever since ancient times, Romanians used to celebrate their traditional holiday, Dragobete, on
the 24th of February. It was a sort of Valentine’s Day. This is the time when nature wakes up, birds
look for places to built their nest and people follow the nature’s course. The legend says that Dragobete
was the son of Dochia. He was a handsome man who likes to indulge himself in love affairs. He isn’t
mild like St. Valentine , but tempestuous like the Dacian god who was thought to celebrate in heaven
the marriage of all the animals.
According to the Romanian belief, those who took part in the Dragobete festivities were
peotected against any sickness all year long. They used to wake up early in the morning, dressed up in
their Sunday clothes and met in the centre of the village, in front of the church. If the weather was
good, they would go singing in small groups to the forest, to look for spring flowers, and if the weather
was bad, they would go at one’s place to tell stories and play games.
Young people used to make symbolical engagements on this occasion and sometimes these
were followed by real engagements. The flowers which were picked up in that day were considered to
have miraculous powers and the girls took fresh snow and turned it into water. This water, obtained
from immaculate snow was considered to be a magic love potion.
The village community was very interested in what happened on this occasion, because at this
time of the year they could find out what weddings they would have to attend in the autumn. In the
afternoon they had parties where people used to dance, sing and have a good time because it was said
that those who didn’t have fun on Dragobete’s day, or at least seen a person of the opposite sex, would
not be able to find a partner for the rest of the year.
In recent years, Romania has also started celebrating Valentine’s Day despite already having
Dragobete as a traditional holiday. In spite of this, there are also places in Romania where Dragobete is
still celebrated. I think that we must celebrate Dragobete more than Valentine’s Day because it is a
traditional holiday from our country and we don’t need to copy another one, exactly the same.

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