Men, why not give her a frog for Valentine’s Day?

Posted on by

Roses, chocs and hearts are the traditional gifts for Valentine’s day.  But why not a give a frog  or a snake? I mean, of course, the jewels.Traditional can mean very nice but maybe on the dull side. We all know the codes for love. It is always red roses on Valentine’s Day and hearts are hearts are hearts. Chocs are just delicious.  But why frogs? They too, are tokens of love, Roman ones, which  signified  wedded bliss. The sentimental Victorians loved this sort of symbolism and designed  some gorgeous frog jewellery using  fun stones such as green garnets or just beautiful diamonds.

Snakes were another popular Roman symbol of love. Queen Victoria’s engagement ring from Albert was a gold jewelled snake ring. A snake with its tail in its mouth makes a circle, a symbol of eternity.

In centuries past when love was less overt and more discreet, romantic gestures abounded.

The 15 most popular symbols :

  • Hearts
  • Padlocks
  • Key and Heart
  • Red roses
  • Arrows
  • Cupid
  • Wings
  • Venus’s accoutrements
  • Snakes
  • Frogs
  • Bees
  • Regard jewellery
  • Engagement rings
  • Wedding rings (The Gotcha symbol)
  • Eternity rings                                             

So go for them.                                                        

 

Many of these tokens of love hark back to Classical mythology – to Venus, the Roman goddess of love and her son Cupid. Roses were sacred to her-particularly red ones as red  was the colour of passion. However, much of the symbolism has been lost, or watered down. The Victorians, for example, developed meanings for nearly 40 types of roses, whether in bud, full blown or with thorns (the latter was passion with pain!) 
Venus’ son Cupid is associated with the second most iconic symbol for love – an arrow. He was able to either shoot golden arrows which created passionate desire or leaden ones to repel. This allegory of love was often translated, at the turn of the last century, into  beautiful arrow brooches and is still found in more modern designs with hearts pierced by an arrow. 
The next post, the ‘gotcha’ symbol (among other things). 
 

2 thoughts on “Men, why not give her a frog for Valentine’s Day?”

  1. what a lovely account of the history of these things.. found the articles very interesting.. will be keeping an ‘eye’ on this for more updates..

    • Thank you so much for your comments. Please feel free to sign up so that you get an email when a new post is uploaded.
      Chloe

      The next post, next week is on gold-the texture and colour of gold

Comments are closed.