TODAY is January 25, which may not seem like a special day - but it is actually St Dwynwen’s Day – the Welsh Valentine’s Day.

It is a celebrated day in most parts of Wales, but why does Wales have a separate day of love and who is the inspiration for the day?

Valentine's Day is celebrated on February 14 all over the world. St Valentine is the Roman patron saint of lovers as well as epileptics and beekeepers. He was said to be a Roman priest and physician who suffered martyrdom - welcoming death rather than denouncing his faith - during the persecution of Christians by emperor Claudius II Gothicus in around 270. He is said to have died on February 14 of that year and Valentine's Day has been celebrated since approximately the 14th century.

While the Welsh also celebrate Valentine's Day, there is the Welsh equivalent - celebrating St Dwynwen - three weeks earlier on January 25. It is a popular celebration among Welsh speakers in the land, but it is becoming more widely popular across Wales, with the people of Wales professing their love to their loved ones in January.

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Who was St Dwynwen?

St Dwynwen was a Welsh princess who lived in the fourth century in what we know now as the Brecon Beacons National Park. She is the Welsh patron saint of lovers – despite being quite unlucky in love herself.

She was said to be the prettiest of King Brychan Brycheiniog’s 24 daughters and fell in love with prince Maelon Dafodrill. To her dismay, her father had already arranged for her to marry someone else.

She was so upset and begged God to make her forget her love. During her sleep, she was visited by an angel carrying a sweet potion that was designed to erase all memory of Maelon and turn the prince into a block of ice.

God then gave the princess three wishes. She first wished that her prince be thawed. Her second wish was that God meets the hopes and dreams of true lovers. Her final wish was that she should never marry.

God granted her these three wishes and as a mark of thanks, she devoted her life to him, becoming a nun and founding a convent on Llanddwyn, located off the west coast of Anglesey. Remains of the church – which had a well named after Dwynwen – can still be seen today. The well and convent became a place of pilgrimage after her death in 465AD. Visitors believed that the sacred fish or eels in the well could foretell whether the visitors relationship would be happy and whether love and happiness would be theirs.

She is also the patron saint of sick and injured animals.