What are the stories of Chinese legendary folk heroes

1, the cowherd and the weaving maiden

The legend of the cowherd and the weaving maiden began in the "Poetry Classic - Dadong": "Crawling his weaving maiden", "yipping his Altair" record. Nineteen Ancient Poems - A Long Way to the Altair Star" already called the Cowherd and the Weaving Maiden husband and wife. Ying Shao's "Customs" Yat Wen: "Weaving Maiden on the eve of the seventh day when crossing the river, so that the magpie for the bridge, according to legend, seven days of the magpie's head for no reason are scalped, because the beam (Note: bridge) to cross the Weaving Maiden also." The story has been initially formed, and combined with the Tanabata custom.

2, the legend of the New Year's money

New Year's Eve, every child is able to get the New Year's money.

The earliest New Year's money appeared in the Han Dynasty, also known as the pressure to win the money, not in circulation, but cast into the form of coins ornamental objects, have the function of avoiding evil spirits. The front side of the coin is generally cast with "long live Qianqiu", "to remove the evil" and other auspicious words and dragons and phoenixes, turtles and snakes, double fish and other auspicious designs. There is a story about New Year's money.

Legend has it that in ancient times, there was a small demon called "Sneaky", with a black body and white hands, who came out on the night of New Year's Eve every year and specialized in touching the brains of sleeping children. After the child is touched, he will have a high fever and talk in his sleep, and after the fever goes down, he will become a crazy fool. People are afraid of the evil spirits to harm the children, light the lamps all night long, called "guarding the evil spirits".

It is said that there is a family surnamed tube in Jiaxing, husband and wife in old age, very precious son. On the night of New Year's Eve, in order to prevent "Sneaky" to infestation has been teasing the child to play, the child with red paper wrapped in eight coins, wrapped and unwrapped, unwrapped and wrapped, slept, wrapped in eight coins on the pillow. In the middle of the night, a gust of wind blew, the black dwarf was about to touch the child's head with his white hand,

Suddenly a golden light burst out from the child's pillow, and Soun fled with a scream. The story spread, and everyone followed suit, giving the child money wrapped in red paper on New Year's Eve, so the spirit would not dare to come back to haunt him. Therefore, people call this kind of money "pressure Sneaky money", "Sneaky" and "age" pronunciation is the same, day after day, it is known as "New Year's Eve money The first is the "Sneak" and "Year".

3, anti-imperialist legend

The legend refers to China's modern opposition to the invasion of the Great Powers. From 1840 to 1949, China was repeatedly invaded by the great powers, and the Chinese people fought many anti-aggression wars. During this period, the people produced many legends and stories with the theme of opposing the invasion of the Great Powers, collectively known as anti-imperialist legends.

The anti-imperialist legends can be divided into two categories: the first category is taken directly from the anti-aggression wars. Such as "Boxer's ambition never die", "Commander Yang wisdom to take Tonghua" and so on. The second category does not directly reflect a specific war, but widely expose the plundering activities of the invaders. Most of the foreign invaders to steal the treasure as the center of events, such as "Golden Phoenix", "can not steal the treasure ship" and so on.

Anti-imperialist legends mainly glorify the bravery and resourcefulness of anti-enemy heroes, including well-known historical figures and the general public, and some stories, although they speak of some kind of physical objects, landscapes, or take material from a certain war, or even speak of the battle stories of a real person, but the storylines are not all historical facts, and the second type of stories are more imaginative. The historical value of such legends lies mainly in the fact that it shows the strong will of the Chinese people to oppose aggression and the spirit of patriotism in fighting against foreign enemies.

4, White Snake and Xu Xian

White Snake story formed the latest, the origin: one said that from the Tang legend "White Snake"; one said that from the "three towers of West Lake". By the time of Feng Menglong's "The White Snake Forever Zhen Leifeng Pagoda" (A Cautionary Tale) in the Ming Dynasty, the story had been initially finalized.

Expanded Information

China is a country with a long history, and contains an extremely rich national cultural heritage in its folklore. Among them, the most characteristic of China is the famous "Cowherd and Weaving Maiden", "Meng Jiangnu Weeping at the Great Wall", "Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai" and "The Legend of the White Snake" four folk love legends. These four legends are the most widely circulated and influential.

In Chinese folklore, the main character of the story is generally known, some of them are well-known figures in history, the event occurred at a specific time and place, and some also involves the major events of the country; and the character activities or the development of the event is often the result of certain history, geographic phenomena and social customs are attached to it, and thus tend to give a person with it is the illusion of real history.

But folklore is fundamentally different from the strict sense of history. Chinese folk oral narrative literature. It consists of stories related to historical events, historical figures and local customs, and is the crystallization of the wisdom of the working people and the essence of local folk culture.

Baidu Encyclopedia - Folk Legends

Baidu Encyclopedia - The Four Great Legends of Ancient Chinese Folklore