Lupercalia, a Roman festival held on Feb. 15 in honour of Lupercus, regarded as the god of fertility, in the celebration of which dogs and goats were sacrificed and their skins cut up into thongs, with which the priests ran through the city striking every one, particularly women, that threw themselves in their way.
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Lüneburg * Lupercus