In the 1700s, rural English women placed (sometimes pinned) five bay leaves on their pillows on Valentine’s Eve – one in each corner and one in the center. Some would also wash the leaves in rosewater, or eat a hardboiled egg with the shell, and remaining silent until morning.
The superstition was used to invoke dreams of a future spouse. If you were really serious, you’d put on a clean nightgown turned wrong side outwards. And, lying down, recite these words softly: “Good Valentine, be kind to me, In dreams let me my true love see.”
