Why do you want to stick willow branches and hang gourds on the Dragon Boat Festival in the north?

Gourd is a vine. Vines are endless and full of fruits and seeds. People in China regard them as auspicious plants, symbolizing the prosperity of future generations. The branch "vine" is homophonic with Wan, indicating that Wan has a long history. Folk tradition holds that gourd is auspicious to ward off evil spirits. The custom of Dragon Boat Festival is to insert peach branches and hang gourds on folk doors. Modern qigong experiment proves that gourd has the function of isolating gas field. There is a folk saying, "I don't know what medicine is sold in the gourd", which means it is difficult to penetrate the gourd to measure the contents. From the analysis of geomantic omen, the shape of Naigourd curve contains the magical function of "S"-shaped Taiji Yin-Yang dividing line. So it is often used in Feng Shui. According to myths and legends, Lv Dongbin, the Eight Immortals, became an oil vendor and went to a mountain village to sell oil. The price of oil shows that the successor pays the oil fee according to the amount of oil pumped. So many people take more oil and pay less money. A teenager also learns from others, taking more oil and giving less money. When the teenager came home, he told his mother the truth about everyone buying oil and buying oil by himself. The mother severely criticized her son and ordered him to return the dozens of pieces of oil immediately and make amends to the oil seller. Lv Dongbin was deeply moved by his honesty. He told the boy that there would be a great disaster on the first day of May, and it would be peaceful to hang a gourd at the door, which could avoid the disaster. The kind mother hurriedly told the neighbors the news, and everyone who heard the news hung a gourd at the door eyebrow. Sure enough, a few days later, a catastrophic flash flood swept away the people who didn't hang the gourd, but the people who hung the gourd were safe and sound. Since then, the custom of hanging gourds a few days before the Dragon Boat Festival has remained. There is also a folk custom. According to legend, on the first day of May of a certain year, when the drug king came to earth, he saw that poisonous insects were rampant and plagues were everywhere in the world, and he hung his gourd full of magical drugs at a door to kill insects and reduce epidemics, thus saving all beings and leaving this custom.

There is another saying in Tomb-Sweeping Day: It turns out that China people regard Tomb-Sweeping Day, July 30th and the first day of October as the three major ghost festivals, which are the time for ghosts to haunt and ask for help. In order to prevent the harassment and persecution of ghosts, people put willows and put them on. Willow has the function of ward off evil spirits in people's minds. Influenced by Buddhism, people think that willows can exorcise ghosts and call them "ghost trees". Guanyin dipped willow branches in water to help all beings. Jia Sixie of the Northern Wei Dynasty said in the Book of Qi Yao Min: "Take a willow branch and put it on the house, and a hundred ghosts will not enter the house." Tomb-Sweeping Day is a ghost festival. When wicker sprouted, people naturally inserted willows to ward off evil spirits.