The dark side of Cupid: Valentine’s Day icon is a ‘savage, untamed’ force of human nature

AH, VALENTINE’S DAY: that Hallmark holiday of greeting cards and chocolates, its bloody origins almost entirely forgotten over the last 2,000 years!

What began as a Christian feast day honoring two or three early Christian martyrs – the original “Valentines” – is now associated with flocks of winged cherubic Cupids, whose innocuous-looking bows and arrows symbolize gentle romance instead of death-dealing war. Somehow, the phrase “struck by Cupid’s arrow” is supposed to be exciting rather than excruciating.