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).