Werewolf Facts

Lupercalia Festival

Lupercalia, ancient Roman festival that was conducted annually on February 15 under the superintendence of a corporation of priests called Luperci.

Each Lupercalia began with the sacrifice by the Luperci of goats and a dog, after which two of the Luperci were led to the altar, their foreheads were touched with a bloody knife, and the blood was wiped off with wool dipped in milk; the ritual required that the two young men laugh. The sacrificial feast followed, after which the Luperci cut thongs from the skins of the sacrificial animals and ran in two bands around the Palatine hill, striking with the thongs at any woman who came near them. A blow from the thong was supposed to render a woman fertile. In 494 AD the Christian church under Pope Gelasius 1 appropriated the form of the rite as the Feast of the Purification.

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The feast of St. Valentine is a Christian conversion of the Roman pagan festival of Lupercalia, where, as part of a fertility rite, men would smear themselves with blood, dress up in animal skins and run around the city whipping young women with cords made of goatskin. The festival was held between 13–15 February to avert evil spirits and purify the city, releasing health and fertility. Other sources claim February 15 to be the right date.

The origins of the festival are obscure, although the likely derivation of its name from lupus (Latin: "wolf") has variously suggested connection with an ancient deity who protected herds from wolves and with the legendary she-wolf who nursed Romulus and Remus. As a fertility rite, the festival is also associated with the god Faunus. Connections are made because of the worship of Lycaean Pan, assumed to be a Greek equivalent to Faunus. Lupercalia was also called dies Februatus, after the instruments of purification called februa, which gave February (Februarius) its name.

At the Lupercal altar, a male goat (or goats) and a dog were sacrificed by one or another of the Luperci, under the supervision of the Flamen dialis, Jupiter's chief priest. The sacrificial feast followed, after which the Luperci cut thongs from the skins of the sacrificial animals and ran in two bands around the Palatine hill, striking with the thongs at any woman who came near them. A blow from the thong was supposed to render a woman fertile.

" ...many of the noble youths and of the magistrates run up and down through the city naked, for sport and laughter striking those they meet with shaggy thongs. And many women of rank also purposely get in their way, and like children at school present their hands to be struck, believing that the pregnant will thus be helped in delivery*, and the barren to pregnancy. "*

The rites were confined to the Lupercal cave, the Palatine Hill, and the Forum, all of which were central locations in Rome's foundation myth. The Luperci completed their circuit of the Palatine, then returned to the Lupercal cave.