Why do you eat eggs, bump eggs and weave egg packets during the Dragon Boat Festival?

According to legend, a long time ago, there was a god of plague in the sky. Every Dragon Boat Festival, he always sneaks into the people to spread the epidemic. Most of the victims are children, ranging from fever and anorexia to bedridden.

When Nu Wa learned about this, she went to the God of plague and said, "My first child will never allow you to hurt me." The god of plague asked, "I wonder how many children are there in the lower bound of the empress?" Nu Wa said with a smile, "Every Dragon Boat Festival, my first child is ordered to hang an egg bag in front of her skirt. All children who hang egg bags are not allowed to mess around. "

This year's Dragon Boat Festival, the god of plague went down again. I saw a small net bag with boiled salted eggs hanging on the children's chests. The god of plague thinks that they are all children of Nu Wa, so they dare not hurt anyone. In this way, the custom of eating eggs on the Dragon Boat Festival gradually spread.

Extended data

Dragon Boat Festival is a very popular folk festival in China. This is a traditional custom of the Chinese nation since ancient times. Due to the vast territory and numerous stories and legends, not only many different festival names have been produced, but also different customs have been observed in different places.

The Dragon Boat Festival in midsummer is an auspicious day for Feilong. Dragon Boat Festival in the form of dragon boat race is an important theme of Dragon Boat Festival, which is still popular in the southern coastal areas of China. In addition, a series of Dragon Boat Festival customs are derived from numbers of yin and yang and seasons. According to the number of yin and yang, noon is yang, and heavy noon is the most yang. The ancients regarded three o'clock in the afternoon and three o'clock in the afternoon as the most important time to eliminate evil spirits.

The ancients also regarded the Dragon Boat Festival as an auspicious year, which coincided with the summer solstice, and called it "Dragon Boat Festival", which is said to be "once in a blue moon". Summer is a season of struggle between yin and yang. Yang goes up and Yin is forced down. In the afternoon, the yang is healthy and the yin is afraid of evil. Summer is also the season to drive away the plague. In midsummer, the Dragon Boat Festival is full of yang, and everything is thriving at this time. It is the strongest day of Chinese herbal medicine in a year. Herbs collected during the Dragon Boat Festival are the most effective in eliminating diseases and preventing diseases.

Due to the gathering of pure yang and healthy qi in the world at noon and the magical characteristics of herbs on this day, many Dragon Boat Festival customs handed down from ancient times have the contents of eliminating yin and evil, eliminating diseases and epidemic prevention, such as hanging wormwood, drinking water at noon, soaking in dragon boat water, tying five-color silk thread to ward off evil spirits, washing herbal water, smoking Atractylodes rhizome to eliminate diseases and epidemic prevention and so on.