"Either before or after St. Valentine's Day fell a much bigger and more general festival, effectively the biggest and wildest of early spring. It began on "Shrove Sunday", the seventh before Easter and continued on 'Collop Monday', and reached its climax on 'Shrove Tuesday'; the sequence of Sundays meant that it was effectively a February feast, although it might occur anywhere from a third of the way through the month until its very end. Its origins lay in the early Middle Ages, along with those of the long fast of Lent, which it directly preceded and which thus created it. The peculiar febrility of Shrovetide sprang from two causes the first that it was the last opportunity for fun before dietary, recreational, and sexual restrictions of Lent set in, and indeed imposed a need to consume remaining stocks of meat, eggs, and cheese before they were interdicted. The second was that by this season stocks of food would have been low for many people in any case and privation considerable, so that an opportunity for the frenetic release of emotion would have been very welcome. The names for the component days in England indicated the dual nature of preparations for the fast. 'Shrove' was from 'shriving' or confession of sins and receipt of absolution, so that the congregations went in Lent with clean consciences; this was what the Church expected from these days. 'Collop' referred to the eating of collops, or cuts of fried or roasted meat. In English-speaking Scotland, and in norther England, the Tuesday was 'Fastens (Fasten's or Fastern's) E'en', 'Fasting's Eve', whike in Gaelic speaking areas it was 'Inid', signifying 'the beginning."
