Have you heard these legends about the Spring Festival?

The Spring Festival of the Year of the Tiger in 2022 is getting closer and closer, do you understand the customs and origins of the Spring Festival while waiting for it? How many legends do you know about the Spring Festival?

One of the legends of the Spring Festival: staying up for the year and keeping the old age

Keeping the age is the custom of not sleeping on the last night of the old year and staying up late to welcome the arrival of the new year, also known as Chinese New Year's Eve keeping the year, commonly known as "staying up the year".

Exploring the origin of this custom, there is an interesting story in the folklore: in ancient times, there was a ferocious monster scattered in the deep mountains and dense forests, and people called them "Nian". Its shape is vicious, ferocious, specializing in eating birds and beasts, scaly insects, changing tastes every day, from kowtow worms to large living people, making people talk about "year" discoloration. Later, people slowly grasped the law of "Nian", which was to sneak to the crowded place every three hundred and sixty-five days to taste fresh food, and the time of haunting was after dark, and when the chickens broke dawn, they returned to the mountains and forests.

Calculating the date of the "New Year" raging, the people regarded this terrible night as a pass, called the "New Year Pass", and came up with a whole set of methods for the New Year's Pass: Every night, every household made dinner in advance, turned off the fire and cleaned the stove, and then tied all the chicken pens and cattle pens, sealed the front and back doors of the house, hid in the house to eat "Chinese New Year's Eve meal", because this dinner had the meaning of fierce auspiciousness, so it was very rich, in addition to asking the whole family to eat together to show a harmonious reunion. It is also necessary to offer sacrifices to ancestors before eating, praying for a safe night, after dinner, no one dares to sleep, sit together and chat and be bold, which gradually forms the habit of staying up for Chinese New Year's Eve years. The custom of keeping the age arose in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and many literati of the Liang Dynasty had poems on keeping the age. "One night is two years old, five is divided into two years." People lit candles or oil lamps and kept vigil all night, symbolizing the drive away of all evil plagues and looking forward to the auspicious new year, a custom that has been passed down to this day.

The second legend of the Spring Festival: the creation of the calendar of ten thousand years

According to legend, in ancient times, there was a young man named Wan Nian, who saw that the season was very chaotic at that time, and he had a plan to set the season accurately. But suffering from not being able to find a way to calculate time, one day, he went up the mountain to cut firewood tired, sat under the shade of the tree to rest, the movement of the tree shadow inspired him, he designed a sun shadow time measurement daytime dial, to determine the time of the day, later, the dripping spring on the cliff inspired him, he made a five-layer leaky pot to calculate the time. Over time, he found that every three hundred and sixty days, the four seasons were reincarnated once, and the length of the days was repeated.

At that time, the monarch was called Zu Yi, and he was often troubled by the weather storm. After Wannian knew, he took the sundial and the leaky pot to see the emperor and explained to Zu Yi the truth about the operation of the sun and the moon. After Zu Yi listened to It, Long Yan was overjoyed and felt that it made sense. So he left ten thousand years behind, built the Sun and Moon Pavilion in front of the Temple of Heaven, built a sundial platform and a leaky pot pavilion, and hoped to measure the law of the sun and the moon, calculate the accurate morning and evening time, and create a calendar for the benefit of the people of Li.

Once, Zu Yi went to learn about the progress of the 10,000-year test calendar. When he ascended to the Temple of the Sun and The Moon, he saw a poem carved on the stone wall beside the Temple of Heaven:

Sunrise and sunset three hundred and six, the cycle begins again and again.

The grass and trees are divided into four hours, and there are twelve circles in one year.

Knowing that the calendar for the creation of the Ten Thousand Years had been completed, Zu Yi personally ascended to the Sun Moon Pavilion to visit the Ten Thousand Years. WanNian pointed to the celestial sign and said to Zu Yi, "Now that it is twelve months old, the old age is over, and the new spring has begun, please ask the monarch to set a festival." Zu Yi said: "Spring is the beginning of the year, let's call it Spring Festival." It is said that this is the origin of the Spring Festival. Winter came and went, year after year, and after a long period of observation and careful calculation, an accurate solar calendar was drawn up, and when he presented the solar calendar to the successive monarchs, he was already full of silver whiskers. The monarch was deeply moved, and in order to commemorate the merits of the 10,000 years, he named the solar calendar "perpetual calendar" and sealed the 10,000 years as the sun and moon life star. Later, people hung up birthday charts during the New Year, which is said to commemorate the 10,000 years of high morality and respect.

The third legend of the Spring Festival: sticking to the Spring League and the door god

It is said that the custom of sticking to the Spring League began about a thousand years ago in the Later Shu period, which is historically proven. In addition, according to the "Jade Candle Treasure Book", "Yanjing Chronicle" and other works, the original form of the Spring League is what people call "peach rune".

In ancient Chinese mythology, it is said that there is a ghost world, which has a mountain, a large peach tree covering three thousand miles, and a golden rooster on the treetops. Whenever the golden rooster chirps in the morning, the ghosts who go out at night will rush back to the ghost domain. The gate of the Ghost Domain is located in the northeast of the peach tree, and by the door stand two gods, named Shendi and Yulei. If the ghost did something harmful at night, shendi and Yulei would immediately find it and catch it, tie it up with a rope made of mangweed, and send it to feed the tiger. Therefore, the ghosts of the world are afraid of the gods and the yu lei. So the folk carved their appearance with peach wood and placed them in front of their homes to avoid evil and prevent harm. Later, people simply carved the names of shendi and Yulei on the peach wood board, believing that doing so could also suppress evil and eliminate evil. This peach plank was later called "peach charm".

In the Song Dynasty, people began to write couplets on peach wood boards, one did not lose the meaning of peach wood to suppress evil, two expressed their good wishes, and three decorated the portal for beauty. Couplets were also written on red paper symbolizing joy and auspiciousness, and pasted on both sides of doors and windows on the occasion of the New Year to express people's good wishes for good luck in the coming year.

Pearl River Source Evening Edition Synthesis