What are the myths and legends about the Spring Festival?

In Archaean, there was a fierce monster scattered in the mountains. People call them nian. Its appearance is fierce, its nature is fierce, and it specializes in eating birds, animals and insects. It changes its flavor every day, from kowtowing insects to living people, which makes people talk about "Nian".

Later, people gradually mastered the activity law of "Nian", that is, they went to places where people lived intensively to taste fresh food every 365 days, and the haunting time was after dark, and when the rooster crowed at dawn, they returned to the mountains.

After setting the date of 2008, people regarded this terrible night as a gateway, which was called 2008, and came up with a whole set of methods to close the New Year: every family cooked dinner in advance on this night, turned off the fire and cleaned the stove, then tied all the cowpeas, sealed the front and rear doors of the house, and hid in the house to eat the "New Year's Eve" because the dinner was uncertain.

Therefore, it is very rich. In addition to inviting the whole family to have dinner together to show harmony and reunion, we must also offer sacrifices to our ancestors before eating, pray for their blessings and spend the night safely. After dinner, no one dares to sleep, sit together and chat with courage. It gradually developed the habit of staying up late on New Year's Eve.

2. perpetual calendar

According to legend, in ancient times, a young man named Wannian saw that the festivals were in chaos. He had a plan to set the festivals accurately, but he couldn't find a way to calculate the time.

One day, he was tired of chopping wood on the mountain and sat in the shade to rest. The movement of the shadow inspired him. He designed a sundial to measure the time of the day. Later, inspired by the dripping spring on the cliff, he began to make five-layer clefts to calculate the time.

As time went on, he found that every 360 days, the four seasons would cycle once and the length of the weather would be repeated. At that time, the monarch was called Zuyi, and he was often troubled by the unpredictable weather. Ten thousand years after knowing this, he went to see the emperor with a sundial and a clepsydra, and explained to Zu Yi the truth about the movement of the sun and the moon.

Zuyi was very happy after hearing this and thought it made sense. So I left for ten thousand years and built the Sun and Moon Pavilion in front of the Temple of Heaven, as well as the sundial platform and the Leaky Pot Pavilion. I hope I can accurately measure the laws of the sun and the moon, calculate the exact time in the morning and evening, and create a calendar to benefit people all over the world. Knowing that the perpetual calendar has been created, I personally boarded the Sun Moon Pavilion to visit for ten thousand years.

Wan Nian pointed to the astronomical phenomena and said to Zu Yi, "Now it is exactly twelve months. The old year has passed and the new year has begun again. Please make a festival for the monarch. " It is said that this is the origin of the Spring Festival.

After years of long-term observation and careful calculation, he worked out an accurate solar calendar. When he showed his successor the solar calendar, he was covered with silver whiskers. The monarch was deeply moved. In order to commemorate the achievements of ten thousand years, he named the solar calendar "perpetual calendar" and named it the birthday star of the sun, the moon and the moon.

3. Fu Tao

Long ago, Dushuo Mountain in the East China Sea had beautiful scenery, and there was a peach forest on the mountain. Among them, there is a huge peach tree, which is flourishing and stretches for three thousand miles. Peaches are big and sweet. If people eat peaches from this tree, they can become immortals. One dark night, a ghost with blue face and fangs, red hair and green eyes tried to steal Xiantao.

Shentu and Lei Yu, the owners of Taolin, played ghosts with peach branches and tied ghosts with straw ropes to feed tigers. From then on, the names of the two brothers frightened the ghosts, and after their death, they became immortals who specially punished evil spirits. Later generations painted two immortals Shen Tu and Lei Yu on a mahogany board one inch wide and seven or eight inches long to drive away ghosts and evil. This kind of red board is called "Fu Tao".

With the changes of the times, Fu Tao itself is changing. Later, people wrote the names of two immortals on the Fu Tao instead of portraits. Later, it developed into "Inscription on Fu Tao", that is, short poems with equal words, symmetrical structure and corresponding meanings were inscribed on Fu Tao, which is the predecessor of Spring Festival couplets.

4, paste Spring Festival couplets, door gods

According to legend, there is a ghost world with a mountain in it. There is a big peach tree covering three thousand miles on the mountain, and there is a golden rooster on the top of the tree. Whenever the golden rooster crows in the morning, the wandering ghosts will rush back to the ghost domain at night. The Gate of Ghost Domain is located in the northeast of Peach Tree. There are two gods standing by the door, one is Shen Tu and the other is Lei Yu.

If the ghost does something abnormal at night, Shen Tu and Lei Yu will immediately find it and catch it, tie it with a rope made of Miscanthus, and then give it to the tiger. So all the ghosts in the world are afraid of Shen Tu and Lei Yu. So people carved them into mahogany and put them at their doorways to ward off evil spirits and prevent harm.

Later, people simply carved the names of Shen Tu and Lei Yu on the mahogany board, thinking that doing so could also eliminate evil. This kind of red board was later called "Fu Tao".

5, lucky money

In ancient times, there was a little monster named Chong who came out to touch the head of a sleeping child on New Year's Eve. The child often cries in fear, then has a headache and becomes a fool. Therefore, on this day, every family stays up with the lights on, which is called "keeping special". ? There was a couple who had a son in their later years and regarded him as a darling. On New Year's Eve, they were afraid that "worship" would hurt their children, so they took out eight copper coins to play with them.

When the children fell asleep playing, they wrapped eight copper coins in red paper and put them under their pillows. The couple dare not sleep. In the middle of the night, an evil wind blew the door open and blew out the lights. When I reached out and touched the child's head, the pillow flashed.

Scared the "special forces" to run away. The next day, the couple told everyone that eight copper coins were wrapped in red paper to scare away "Chong". After that, everyone learns to do this, and the children will be safe. It turned out that eight copper coins were exchanged by the Eight Immortals for secret protection of children. It is a homonym of "worship" and "age", and later it gradually evolved into "lucky money".

In the Ming and Qing dynasties, it was called lucky money. The lucky money given to children by elders is also called lucky money. "So in some places, giving children lucky money is called" stringing money ". In modern times, it has evolved into red paper wrapped in 100 copper coins by the younger generation, which means "long life". "For adult teenagers, putting a silver dollar in a red paper bag means that" a book is profitable ".

After the currency is changed to paper money, the elders like to go to the bank to exchange new banknotes with face numbers for their children, wishing them "continuous promotion".