February 15th: Lupercalia

During the period of Parentalia, in this day the festivity of Lupercalia is celebrated.

The sunlight of the day is dedicated to fertility; magic animals are evoked in honour of the sacred she-wolf Luperca. The night is dedicated to curative sleeping and dreaming.

The festivity is dedicated to Faunus Lupercus- Luperca, God of wolves and she-wolves. Faunus Lupercus-Luperca, "the Favourable", is a sylvanus and forest God sending messages to whom is sleeping in his/her sacred woods and forest.

In the past, there was in Rome a sacred society (Luperci): these Luperci sacrificed goats in front of the sacred cave (please pay great attention to the relevant symbolic value of the cave in Roman Paganism), near the Palatinus, called lupercal. The lupercal was the Faunus' sacred site: close there was the Ficus Ruminalis where Romolus and Remus were found and whose fruits the twins have eaten. Luperca was the name of the she-wolf has found Romulus and Remus.

The naked Luperci, after having sacrificed the goats, dressed with goatskins, run around the Palatinus hitting with stripes of goatskin those women waiting to be hit because this rite gave fertility to women.