Author: An Xiuting
The twenty-third lunar month is a small year for our northerners (the small year of the southerners is the twenty-fourth lunar month), commonly known as the sacrificial stove. In the old patriarchal court, rich and poor, they attach great importance to this festival.
At this time of year, people have to go to the market to spend a few cents to ask for a stove prince, also known as the imperial calendar. There are twenty-four solar terms date and a picture of the king of the stove, pasted on the cooking stove, and burned the old one with a smoky fire. Next to the Stove King, there are generally couplets written: The heavens say good things, and the netherworld is safe. Yokozuna: The head of the family. From this, the identity and role of the stove prince are clear at a glance.
Regarding the legend and origin of the King of Stove, there are poems to prove it:
King Zhao, whose original surname is Zhang,
Since childhood, he has been named Zhang Wanchang.
His father chose a virtuous wife for him,
Hired the fisherwoman Guo Lilac.
Guo Nu is versatile and virtuous,
Good at making mullet noodles and fish soup.
Taste good and nutritious,
The family road is rich and noble.
Wanchang hated the fisherwoman,
A paper hughed Guo Lilac.
So far the family road has been destroyed,
The family's wealth was swept away.
Ten winter months to ask for food,
Twenty-three days met with cloves.
Lilac is inherently good,
Shiqi mullet noodle fish soup.
Wanchang was ashamed and had no place,
He died in the head of the stove hall.
The Jade Emperor remembered that he had remorse,
He was made the butler the King of Stove.
A hundred years after the end of the lilac,
Also take the stove king grandmother as.
Every year, a short ceremony is held to replace the old with a new one, where offerings are made: twist flowers, sesame candy, burning three-pillar incense, pricking a horse with a high grain pole, and then kneeling down and prostrating, eating dumplings or sour gnocchi soup. After a small year, even if it is really the countdown to a big year. The school was on holiday, each family was cleaned up, ancestral tablets were placed, and red bars and spring leagues such as "going out to see the joy", "spring in the courtyard", "thriving in the slot" and other red stripes and spring unions were posted everywhere, and the atmosphere of the New Year became thicker and thicker every day.
February 4, 2021
(Source: The Kitchen Lady's Poems and Distant Public Accounts)