"Yongzheng December Xingletu Waxing Moon Snow" Qing Palace Museum Collection
Talking about the new year, it is time for a flying snow, Ruixue Mega Year, that should be the scene of the New Year. When it snows, the children can also build snowmen, have snowball fights, ski, play with snow, you build a big-faced cat with a red nose and blue eyes, I pile a Bearded, Staring-eyed Pirates of the Caribbean, a burst of silver bell-like laughter, shaking the snow on the red lantern red spring league under the eaves of the house...
When it comes to building snowmen, the ancients also did this kind of childlike leisurely game on snowy days, but they did not pile up little people, but "lions", called "snow lions". In the literature, the history of the ancients building snowmen can be traced back to the Song Dynasty. Not only the children piled up, but also the dignitaries and ladies and concubines also came out of the pile.
According to the Northern Song Dynasty's "Tokyo Dream Record", the rich and noble families in Kaifeng Province would set up banquets on snowy days, build snow lions in their homes, and set up snow lanterns as decorations, which was a rather luxurious pomp and circumstance at that time. Not only are rich and noble people building snow lions to play, but even the palace is also popular for building snow lions.
In the Southern Song Dynasty's "Past Events of Wulin", the basic process of snow viewing in the imperial palace at that time was recorded in detail: whenever it snowed, the palace should pile up large and small snow lions, and decorate various jinling colored threads on the snow lions as the main artificial snow scenery to watch and play.
Qing "Yongzheng December Xingletu Waxing Moon Snow" (partial)
In the ancient literati's pen, the scene of snow is very beautiful, and building snow lions is more interesting. Zhang Lei, a Northern Song Dynasty writer and one of the four scholars of Sumen, described the appearance of the "snow lion" in "In the Drama of the Snow Lion":
Six out of the costume came the Hundred Beast King, and after the sunrise came out, ben lang dang.
People who are afraid of the eyebrows and think that you should have no familiar lungs and intestines.
You, the lion of the "King of the Hundred Beasts", look at the majesty, but as soon as the sun comes out, you will be defeated, and you will frown and stare, who is afraid of you, your cute look is very cute. Southern Song Dynasty poet Wang Yisun wrote in "Slow Sound. "Snow Urging", expressing the expectations of the little daughter's family for building snow lions,
Hugh was whitened by plum blossoms, and he was good at exaggerating and fighting, and he had already gone all over the branches.
Colorful golden bells, beautiful people and other plastic lions.
It snowed a lot, and this cloud of snowflakes competed with plum blossoms, turning the green bamboo and red plums into jade tree branches. When the snow clears, we bring colored bells and go to the yard to build snow lions!
"Snow Lion Building" (partial) Yu Ming, 1921, collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
In a poem "Palace Words", Hu Zhonggong of the Southern Song Dynasty also wrote the mood of building snow lions:
Yao Hua flew to remember Yao Ji, pouring a cup at twelve o'clock a day.
Qingyu froze his hands before the case, and pushed the window to mold the snow lion.
Snowflakes fell like jade chips poured from a fairy's cup, falling all morning. Unable to wait for the snow to stop, the palace ladies held their hands and pushed open the window to run to the courtyard to build snow lions. The Southern Song Dynasty poet Hua Yue wrote "Snow Lion", two of which are very interesting: "But I will freeze my hands and clothes, and laugh at my golden bell with orange peel." He decorated the snow lion with leftover orange peel as a golden bell around its neck. Liu Chenweng, a poet of the late Southern Song Dynasty, wrote in a poem "Eight Voices of Ganzhou":
Even among the flowers, the children are smiling. People add snow lions into.
Ren Treading Qing has no way, Ling Bo has land, step by step light dust.
It describes the joy of the snow lions after they are piled up.
In the Yuan Dynasty, this kind of "snow lion building" was not only a custom, but also a skill. The early Yuan poet Su Yanwen wrote in "Yue Tuning. At the end of "Winter Scene", there are sentences such as "the most feared thing is to hang the ice pick upside down in front of the eaves" and "the skillful craftsman snow lion is like a thousand", indicating that the exquisite and tall snow lion is made by skilled craftsmen and craftsmen. The Yuan Dynasty poet Xie Zongke also wrote a poem "Snow Lion", which reads:
A cloud of foxy snow appeared, and the jade light rose like a flame.
The ridges and ice blades are sharp, and the wind and frost are full of lungs and livers.
The qi forced the bear to respond to the chestnut, and the wei lin rhinoceros elephant was also cold.
From the person who mistakenly recognized the salt-shaped tiger, Mo looked up at the morning sun.
The poet used white painting techniques to write out the form, temperament and majesty of the snow lion, and the last sentence has a deep meaning, people see you as a tiger made of salt, no matter how majestic, look up at the morning sun, it has long been mottled and unconfigured.
Illustration of "Silver World", created by Kitagawa Kaoru, collected by the Metropolitan Museum of Art
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, folk activities such as building snow lions were popularized, and ordinary palace women and ordinary people often regarded building lions on snowy days as a custom. A ming dynasty poet Zhu Quan's "Palace Words" is very cleverly written, shiyun:
One night Yao flowers full of forbidden steps, Xiao lai rising sun ying Xi Zhai.
The palace people made a lion in the snow and laughed at the ice hairpin as a jade noodle.
The poem recounts the scene of the maidens in the palace building snow lions, smiling and smiling, mistaking Ice Ling for jade, and the hairpin is between the dark clouds. Gu Jiayu, a cloth poet of the Qing Dynasty, also wrote a long poem "Snow Lion Song", which includes "children jumping on the streets, bamboo brooms sweeping snow and cold winds." Climbing Luo casually tried to tease, the state of matter is not the same", indicating that the children of ordinary people at that time also loved to plow snow on snowy days and build snow lions.
Late Qing Dynasty Tianjin Yangliu Qing woodblock print "Ruixue Fengnian" (partial)
The subject matter of building snow lions is also reflected in the New Year paintings. The Yangliu youth painting "Ruixue Fengnian" by the Qing Dynasty painter Gao Tongxuan depicts the cheerful scene of the cold winter waxing moon, the snowy sky, and children playing and building snow lions. The inscription on the painting is very interesting:
At a moment of rapid snow and sunny baking, there were six or seven children in the playground.
Good to take advantage of the warehouse surplus of hundreds of millions of land, why not make up for the heavenly merits in the white war.
In the good years of heavy snow, it turns out that children build snow lions to pray for abundant grains and six animals to prosper.
In the long history, why were the ancients keen on "building snow lions" instead of building snow tigers and snowmen? Originally, "lions" were exotic and rare species, and in the Han Dynasty, the King of Rest paid tribute to the imperial court with several lions, and the lions were called "Rui Beasts" and "Hundred Beast Chiefs". People carved stone lions in front of the door as "guardian gods", the town guarded the four directions, protecting the peace, the lion became a symbol of honor, town house blessings, and auspicious omens. These stone sculptures of lions have become a direct reference for adults and children to build snow lions after snow.
"Painting the Snow and Enjoying the Snow" (partial) by Ming Sun Kehong, collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei
In the Qing Dynasty, in addition to building snow lions on snow days, people also used snow building arhats as a widely spread hobby and custom when playing with snow. Snow Arhat, also known as "Snow Maitreya" and "Snow Buddha", is an image of Maitreya Buddha made of snow. Before the Tang and Song dynasties, statues were very serious things, and they were props used for sacrifices, witchcraft, and life rituals. In the Qing Dynasty, on the basis of weakening the connotation of faith, there were toy statues, and snow-building arhats appeared during this period.
In his miscellaneous collection of essays, "Supplementary Collection of Jianhuan", the literary scholar Chu Renyu of the early Qing Dynasty recorded a riddle that Kangxi saw during his southern tour, and the enigmatic poem was:
When the hue is empty, it feels like it is sprinkled, and the emperor descends from the great Luo Tian.
Laughing at his dust net is really a hindrance, sitting until the ice disappears is Zen.
Don't dare to be inflamed and silent, why not keep a cold belly and poop.
I thought that Yi was also afraid of spring and had long since dissolved in front of La.
The mystery of this riddle is the Snow Arhat. The riddle is very cleverly written, on the surface it is writing "Luohan", but at the same time it also shows the characteristics of "snow" in the puzzle. Almost every sentence has a pun, "explicit" and "hidden" at the same time, which makes people play. For example, the sentence "Zhijun descended from the Great LuoTian" clearly states that the Arhat is a god of the Heavenly Dao, implying that the Snow Arhat is made of snow falling from the sky. Another example is the sentence "Thinking of Yi is also afraid of spring", which not only writes that Luohan is afraid of spring, but also refers to the snowman's fear of spring coming. It's a thoughtless read with endless charm.
Feng Zikai manga "Snowman".
In the pen of modern writers, building snow arhats is also a fun game. Mr. Lu Xun wrote about "Plastic Snow Arhat" in "From The Hundred Grass Garden to the Sanwei Book House" and "Snow". In the prose poem "Snow", he wrote: "The children are frozen red, like small hands like purple bud ginger, seven or eight together to shape the snow arhat." Because of the lack of success, whose father also came to help. The arhats were much taller than the children, although they were only a bunch of small and large ones, and finally it was impossible to tell whether it was Hulu or Luohan; but it was very white, very bright, bonded with its own moisture, and the whole sparkle was shining. The children made eyeballs for him with longan nuclei, and stole rouge from their mother's fat powder to apply to their lips. This time it was indeed a great arhat. He sat in the snow with his eyes burning red. "It's very delicate and vivid.
Tao Xingzhizuo, a famous modern educator, has two children's songs, one is "Snow Lion": "Snow lion, fake mighty wind, the sun prince will hunt and bury you alive in the mud." The other is "Snow Arhat": "Big fat man, laughing and giggling." When the sun came, it turned into rotten sludge. "We read these poems over and over again, remembering the scenes of our childhood, and couldn't help but jump at it, fantasizing about following the little friends in the poems, building snow lions and snow arhats together, humming nursery rhymes and singing nursery rhymes together.
But can you still encounter the snow world that is flying in the sky and wrapped in silver like before? The snow lion, the snow arhat, or the big snowman with the round head and round face and round body, may only be imagined in the misty dream, in the beautiful poetic description.
-Author-
Liu Qirui, male, a native of Tancheng, Shandong, a veteran literature lover, published the essay collection "The Song of that year", "Nostalgia is a Curved Blue Moon" and the short story collection "Hedong Hexi".