Juno Februata

A festival said to be of Juno Februata or Juno Februa, though it does not appear in Ovid's Fasti was described by Alban Butler, famous as the author of Butler's Lives of Saints, who presented an aspect of the Roman Lupercalia as a festival of a "Juno Februata", under the heading of February 14:

"To abolish the heathens lewd superstitious custom of boys drawing the names of girls, in honour of their goddess Februata Juno, on the fifteenth of this month, several zealous pastors substituted the names of saints in billets, given on this day."Butler, Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints London, 1756-59, quoted in Jack B. Oruch, "St. Valentine, Chaucer, and Spring in February", Speculum 56.3 (July 1981, pp. 534-565), p 539.

Jack Oruch, who noted Butler's inventive confusion, noted that it was embellished by Francis Douce, in Illustrations of Shakespeare, and of Ancient Manners, new ed. London, 1839, p 470, who took such a festival for the Lupercalia, which was celebrated, he asserted,

"during a great art of the month of February.... in honour of Pan and Juno... On this occasion, amidst a variety of ceremonies, the names of young women were put into a box,......

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