There are a lot of legends and stories about festivals in ancient China, what are some of the stories about the year?

Legendary stories:

It is said that the beast of the year head big body small, body length of more than ten feet, eyes like copper bells, come and go like the wind; wailing when the sound of "year ~", so the name of the beast of the year. Over time, people gradually found that the beast is afraid of three things, namely, red, fire and loud noise.

So later people in the New Year's Eve when the beast will come together, sticking red paper, hanging red lanterns, firecrackers, etc., the purpose is to drive away the beast.

When the beast was driven away, people would always be happy to say to each other: "Another year has passed." The saying of New Year's Eve came to be, and the custom of celebrating New Year's Eve was born.

Expanded Information:

New Year's Beast:

The New Year's Beast:

is a demon in folklore and mythology. From the pre-Qin to the Qing Dynasty, there are no records of the myths, mysteries, legends and escapist notes, such as the Classic of Mountains and Seas, Sojourn of the Gods, or Liaozhai Zhiyi. There are three possibilities:

1, the beast of the year is just modern people combined with the Spring Festival firecrackers to drive away the evil and other customs fabricated legends, blackmail;

2, the beast of the year for the local legends of a certain place, the modern people wonderful writing, through the network spread and widely circulated;

3, there are indeed canonical records, just not yet found. Legend has it that in ancient times, every year-end midnight, the beast of the year will attack the village, where the beast of the year occupation of the village have suffered a brutal massacre, the horns on the head is the slaughter weapon. At the end of the massacre, the Year Beast would eat the heads of all the people.

In order to prevent people from swindling or escaping, the beast pretends to leave the village and then comes back to slaughter the survivors, even causing the village to shake violently. Even babies and children were hardly spared. People take advantage of the two main weaknesses of the New Year's beast by setting off firecrackers (which will scare the beast away) and putting up Spring Festival couplets to ward off the beast's attacks.

Reference:

Baidu Encyclopedia - New Year's Eve