Get ahead on Valentine's Day

February 12, 2012 2:53 PM

While most couples celebrate Valentine's Day with flowers, chocolates and candlelit dinners, archivists have unearthed evidence that a less savoury romantic gesture was practised historically - bestowing a severed head on a loved one.
posted by boygeorge (34 comments total)

Something, something, getting head on Valentine's Day.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 2:54 PM on February 12, 2012 [8 favorites]

Hmmm, she has been asking for something a bit different this year.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:57 PM on February 12, 2012 [3 favorites]

I see potential for an interesting gummi candy.
posted by jonmc at 3:01 PM on February 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Romance is dead.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 3:02 PM on February 12, 2012

Romance is head, sorry.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 3:04 PM on February 12, 2012 [2 favorites]

Romance is dead.

Aw, no it's not:

[singing]
Put your severed head on my shooooooooulder
Whisper in my ear, baby
Words I want to hear, tell me
Tell me that you love me too.
posted by FelliniBlank at 3:05 PM on February 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Wasn't this sort of the plot to the latest trailer for the videogame Lollipop Chainsaw?

(Ok, not really. She severs her boyfriend's head on her own, he doesn't give her some other severed head.)
posted by radwolf76 at 3:05 PM on February 12, 2012

I would think that, with conventional preparation, the head would be a more savory dish than the sweet chocolates.
posted by StickyCarpet at 3:07 PM on February 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

On the next episode of Heston's Feasts...
posted by Foci for Analysis at 3:08 PM on February 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

From "Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil" (Keats, but illustrated here by William Holman Hunt), aka "So I Planted My Lover's Severed Head, and All I Got Were Some Lovely Cooking Herbs":

In anxious secrecy they took it home,
And then the prize was all for Isabel:
She calm’d its wild hair with a golden comb,
And all around each eye’s sepulchral cell
Pointed each fringed lash; the smeared loam
With tears, as chilly as a dripping well,
She drench’d away:—and still she comb’d, and kept
Sighing all day—and still she kiss’d, and wept.

LII.

Then in a silken scarf,—sweet with the dews
Of precious flowers pluck’d in Araby,
And divine liquids come with odorous ooze
Through the cold serpent pipe refreshfully,—
She wrapp’d it up; and for its tomb did choose
A garden-pot, wherein she laid it by,
And cover’d it with mould, and o’er it set
Sweet Basil, which her tears kept ever wet.
posted by MonkeyToes at 3:09 PM on February 12, 2012 [2 favorites]

Having my severed head be given as a Valentine's Day gift is closer to a romantic relationship than I'm otherwise going to get, so sure, sign me up.
posted by planet at 3:11 PM on February 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

It's one way to say "I am head over heels for you," but there are practical problems.....
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:13 PM on February 12, 2012 [2 favorites]

What? What is this? This is just a cheap head from the convenience store! If you loved me, you'd get me a severed head that means something! Don't act like I don't know the difference!
posted by furiousthought at 3:19 PM on February 12, 2012 [14 favorites]

I debated about whether or not to click the link, really hoping there wouldn't be a photo of an actual severed head accompanying the article. (Luckily, there wasn't.)
posted by hypotheticole at 3:23 PM on February 12, 2012

Can I imagine it?

"Did you do this yourself?"
*swoon*

...no, aint gonna happen, flowers again this year
posted by From Bklyn at 3:25 PM on February 12, 2012

My Largely Mythological Husband gave me M&Ms personalized with one of our little shmoopy words on them, and I was excited*. But now I don't know what to think.




*They arrived early, so we dug in.
posted by Sidhedevil at 3:28 PM on February 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Metafilter: It will perhaps be safer to go in the summer.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:29 PM on February 12, 2012

Because every lover is Salome at heart:

And when a convenient day was come, that Herod on his birthday made a supper to his lords, high captains, and chief estates of Galilee; And when the daughter of the said Herodias came in, and danced, and pleased Herod and them that sat with him, the king said unto the damsel, Ask of me whatsoever thou wilt, and I will give it thee. And he sware unto her, Whatsoever thou shalt ask of me, I will give it thee, unto the half of my kingdom. And she went forth, and said unto her mother, What shall I ask? And she said, The head of John the Baptist.

And she came in straightway with haste unto the king, and asked, saying, I will that thou give me by and by in a charger the head of John the Baptist. And the king was exceeding sorry; yet for his oath's sake, and for their sakes which sat with him, he would not reject her. And immediately the king sent an executioner, and commanded his head to be brought: and he went and beheaded him in the prison, and brought his head in a charger, and gave it to the damsel: and the damsel gave it to her mother. (Mark 6:21-29, KJV)
posted by bearwife at 3:29 PM on February 12, 2012 [2 favorites]

Ideally, one gets a head of the other suitors this way.
posted by stinkycheese at 3:31 PM on February 12, 2012 [3 favorites]

Wasn't there an episode of The Real World: London, where one of the cast members received (I think as a Valentine's gift) a pig's heart with a nail in it? I remember the guy even said something like "I was really quite disturbed."
posted by AMSBoethius at 3:34 PM on February 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Wait. Wait. We're not supposed to do this anymore? Well... it will give me some more room in my freezer. But I'm telling you now, romance is a dead art. So to speak.
posted by Splunge at 3:39 PM on February 12, 2012 [2 favorites]

Will you be my Valentine? from a related thread.
posted by unliteral at 3:43 PM on February 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

This left-field approach to love-making, practised by 19th-century Taiwanese aborigines,

So, not really a thing, then?
posted by chavenet at 3:47 PM on February 12, 2012

This year I think I will celebrate Valentine's day by getting totally blootered on red wine and whisky, falling asleep in a drunken stupor on the living room carpet and waking in the early hours on a patch of filthy carpet sodden with sleep-drool and bitter tears. This has been a tradition since I was thirty-eight years old, and I am nothing if not a great respecter of tradition.
posted by Decani at 3:52 PM on February 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

So, not really a thing, then?

It's superficially plausible.
posted by planet at 3:54 PM on February 12, 2012

Well....that's one thing we don't stock at our florist ......
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 4:26 PM on February 12, 2012

I for one am glad that hanging brain is no longer au courant.
posted by jenkinsEar at 4:41 PM on February 12, 2012

I now have concerns that my students will request my head next week, as opposed to the chocolates I so kindly purchased for them. This is what happens when the first set of papers comes due.
posted by thomas j wise at 4:54 PM on February 12, 2012

bestowing a severed head on a loved one.

The Severed Head Blues

i gave my baby a severed head
she just rolled her eyes, and said:
"baby, that ain't enough,
no baby that ain't enough,
you wanna get me into bed?
it won't be for no severed head!"

i gave my baby a whole dead body
she said "man, don'tcha treat me so god damn shoddy!
cause, that ain't enough
no baby that ain't enough,
if you wanna get me into bed,
it won't be for no body or head!"

so i said "OK babe, how 'bout i kill myself?
then you can put *my* head upon your bedroom shelf"
she said "OK sweety, that sounds alright,
why don't you kill yourself just around midnight?
and baby that'll be enough,
yeah baby that'll be enough,
and while i'm lying in bed,
i'll gaze upon your severed head
yeah honey, while i'm lying in bed,
i'll gaze upon your severed head!"
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:09 PM on February 12, 2012

See also.
posted by Evilspork at 9:10 PM on February 12, 2012

If she reads this FPP, and it spoils the surprise, I'm hunting down the OP for next year.
posted by pompomtom at 9:41 PM on February 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

A head?! Wusses.

Among the Hamar of Ethiopia "a man should not marry until he has killed either another man, or an elephant, a lion or a buffalo…and it is much easier to kill a man than a lion". Then: "The father greets his son by lifting up his right hand in which he already holds the gun and genitals (scrotum and penis if he can get them) of the slain enemy."
posted by Skeptic at 2:39 AM on February 13, 2012

"Now, your best method of pleasing a woman is the warm, beating heart of an enemy. Oh, women say they don't like it, but they do! Makes them wet as October!"
- Titus Pullo
posted by WhackyparseThis at 2:52 AM on February 13, 2012

Come on baby, don't you be late
I want your head, I want it tonight
Cut your head of at half past eight
I'll have it on my wall about a half past ten
posted by Danf at 10:48 AM on February 13, 2012 [1 favorite]