his sweetheart, but the lovestruck young man sending a St. Valentine's Day gift is celebrating a festival older than Christian times.

February 14, or a nearby date, has been an orgy of romance since the days of the Roman empire and maybe earlier.

Historians believe it was originally a pagan festival, possibly Lupercalia, absorbed into the Christian calendar by early missionaries.

Lupercalia was dedicated to Pan, the god of fertility, and Juno, the guardian of women and goddess of married life.

It was celebrated as winter drew to a close and the earliest spring flowers came into bloom, carrying with them thoughts of renewal and procreation.

Tradition has it that birds choose their mates on St. Valentine's Day -- a belief which has some foundation since certain species, including the thrush and partridge, select their mates in mid-February.

Humans too, it seems, succumb to the urge to pair as Spring approaches. While customs may have changed, a universal love of romance has ensured that St.

Valentine's Day retains most of its original potency.

Throughout the west, sales of red roses and chocolates will soar; newspaper columns will be filled with cryptic messages between lovers, post boxes will brim with Valentine cards illustrated with flowers and birds, symbols of fertility and romance.

At one time, the sending of a Valentine card or gift meant a proposal of marriage. And while sending a card may be little more than a flirtation these days, St. Valentine's Day remains the favourite day for marriage proposals.

So strong is the romantic element of St. Valentine's Day that it is no longer clear which saint the Christians intended to commemorate on February 14.

There were at least two saints of that name and several martyrs because Valentine was a common name in ancient Rome. Historians say he was probably a priest who was beheaded on the Flaminian way on February 14, 269 AD after he had succeeded in converting his prison guard to Christianity while in jail for helping Christian martyrs.

Although the Christians succeeded in changing the name of the festival, and probably toning down some its more bawdy practises, some customs continued almost to the present day.

One of the ceremonies of Lupercalia where the names of young women were drawn from a box and allotted to available men was practised in Europe right up to the 20th century.

The 17th century English diarist Samuel Pepys tells how he was allotted Valentines each February 14, drawing his own wife in 1666 and recording, characteristically, that this would cost him five pounds -- equivalent to about 300 pounds ($475) now.

Early English accounts of the lovers' festival include one by the 14th century poet Geoffrey Chaucer, who wrote that on "Seynt Valentyes Day...ye come for te chese your mates.'' In those days, children would also have taken part in St. Valentine's Day, receiving sweets and Valentine's buns -- a seasonal cake containing plums.

Tradition once held that the first bachelor an unmarried woman encountered on Valentine's Day would become her husband.

Consequently, young women would contrive to see the man of their choice on that morning. According to one 19th century account, when she met him, she would quote him the following verse: "Good morrow Valentine, I go today, To wear for you what you must pay, A pair of gloves next Easter day.'' The ensnared man was obliged to present the gloves on Easter morning. Gloves were an important symbol, representing purity. An 18th century English suitor would have sent his sweetheart a pair of gloves as a marriage proposal.

In earlier centuries, St. Valentine's Day had been more frivolous and married people could also draw Valentines. It could be a very expensive occasion, however.

Pepys wrote that in 1667 the Duke of York "having once been Mrs. Stewart's Valentine, did give her a jewel of about 800 pounds.'' Eight hundred pounds would now be worth around 47,000 pounds ($74,850).

In parts of England, gifts would be left on the Valentine's doorstep by an admirer who knocked and then ran away.

Valentine cards became popular during the 18th century, although the practice of sending them anonymously developed only in the 20th century, according to Susan van Wyk of the auctioneers Christie's, which is holding a sale of old Valentine cards.

She says the introduction of the postal system in the 18th century was the main reason cards grew in popularity.

The earliest card in Christies' auction, dating from around 1790, is made from white paper intricately cut to show a couple with hearts in their hands, then placed on a black paper background. It would have taken hours of work.

A less romantic tradition in Valentine cards developed along with the postal system, when jilted lovers took to sending malicious cards, shoddily produced on cheap paper and bearing abusive verses to the lovers who had spurned them.

Such cards became so common that the post office was forced to employ a solicitor to write to irate fathers demanding the refund of postage they had paid for one of these cards addressed to their daughters. At that time, from around the mid 18th century to 1840, the receiver of a letter paid the cost of postage.