What is the legend and custom of winter solstice?

1, from the ancient emperors-Huangdi and Yao Di. There are two theories that the Winter Solstice Festival originated from the Yellow Emperor and Yao Di. According to the Historical Records of Xiaowu, a minister said to Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty: "The Yellow Emperor got Baoding (or Jia), which is the year of winter and heaven, and then started all over again. So the Yellow Emperor pushed the policy to welcome his grandson. Later, at the age of 20, he got the winter solstice. " This record shows that the Yellow Emperor took the winter solstice as the beginning of the year and took "Shuodan", but there is no such record in the Historical Records of the Yellow Emperor Stupid Chicken, so it is difficult to test the isolated evidence. Another way of saying it is that Emperor Yao ordered his uncle He to live in the north, observe the movement of the sun, and then determine the time of winter. "Shangshu Yu Shu Yaodi" once said: "(Yaodi) declared that he and his uncle would live in the north and called him a secluded capital. Ping is in Yi Shuo. The day is short and the star is long. It is already mid-winter. " (press: new moon, north also. However, The Book of History was written closer to the Yao Di era, with relatively high credibility, and the historical materials contained in it may be closer to historical facts. It can be seen that the winter solstice, as a festival, has been paid attention to in ancient China.

2. Eating jiaozi is also a diet custom in winter solstice. According to legend, Zhang Zhongjing, a famous doctor in the Han Dynasty, saw that many poor people's ears were frozen rotten in the twelfth lunar month, so he cooked herbs and mutton together, fished them out and chopped them up, and wrapped jiaozi in ear-like dough for people to eat. People feel warm in their ears after eating. From the solstice of winter to New Year's Eve, villagers whose ears were frozen were cured by this kind of jiaozi. Therefore, there is a saying among the people: In the winter of solstice, jiaozi will not freeze its ears.

3. Eating wonton, another dietary custom of the winter solstice festival, is the so-called "winter solstice wonton and summer solstice noodle". According to legend, during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period and in the winter, Fu Cha, the king of Wu, was addicted to wine and food, so he got tired of eating delicacies, so he rolled dough with stones, made it into dustpan cakes and gave it to the king of Wu.

4, ancestor worship, people have the custom of ancestor worship on this day. There are many customs of ancestor worship, such as "sending cold clothes", that is, when the severe winter comes, children and grandchildren send warm clothes to their deceased ancestors. Another example is the "coffin day" in some places in the south of the Yangtze River, that is, burning the rotting coffins of the elderly on the night of the winter solstice and moving the bones into clay pots. People think that holding such bone washing and second burial can let ancestors rest in graves.