It's amazing that the little mouse is short, ranking first, the old cow second, the tiger third, the rabbit fourth, the snake fifth ... what's behind it?

This is the song of the zodiac: Little mouse, amazing, short, ranking first, cow second, tiger third, rabbit fourth running happily, dragon fifth, snake sixth, horse seventh, sheep eighth, monkey ninth, rooster following ten, dog crowing eleven times, and finally old pig reporting.

The China Zodiac was created by ancient people in China. The zodiac signs are 12, which are (in order): mouse, cow, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, chicken, dog and pig.

Extended data

The origin of the zodiac is related to animal worship. According to the Qin bamboo slips unearthed in Yunmeng Shuihudi, Hubei Province and Fangmatan, Tianshui, Gansu Province, there was a relatively complete zodiac system in the pre-Qin period. The earliest handed down document that recorded the same Chinese zodiac as the modern one was Lun Heng written by Wang Chong in the Eastern Han Dynasty. ?

The zodiac is an intuitive representation of the twelve earthly branches, namely, Zi (mouse), Ugly (ox), Yin (tiger), Mao (rabbit), Chen (dragon), Si (snake), Wu (horse), Wei (sheep), Shen (monkey), You (chicken) and Xu (chicken).

With the development of history, it has gradually integrated into the concept of folk belief, which is manifested in marriage, life, annual luck and so on. Each zodiac has rich legends, forming a conceptual interpretation system and becoming an image philosophy in folk culture, such as the zodiac in marriage, the blessing in temple fairs, the year of birth and so on.

In modern times, more people regard the zodiac as the mascot of the Spring Festival and become a symbol of entertainment and cultural activities. As a long-standing symbol of folk culture, the zodiac has left a lot of poems, Spring Festival couplets, paintings, calligraphy and paintings and folk arts and crafts that depict the image and symbolic meaning of the zodiac. Apart from China, many countries in the world issue stamps of the zodiac during the Spring Festival to express their wishes for the New Year in China.

References:

Zodiac-Baidu Encyclopedia