Folklore of Double Ninth Festival

The earlier legend about the Double Ninth Festival can be found in the Continued Harmony of Wu Jun in the Liang Dynasty:

"RuNa huan scene, with the old study for many years. Changfang said that there should be a disaster in your home on September 9, so you should go at once. Let the family make their own crimson sacs, tie their arms with dogwood, climb high and drink chrysanthemum wine, and this snail disaster can be eliminated. Jing climbed the mountain with his family. Good evening, goodbye? Dogs, cows and sheep died suddenly. This can be exchanged on the day Nagataka heard about it. People in this world went up to drink on the ninth day, and the woman took Kaunus' bag, and the lid started here. "

Many important books, such as Beginners in the Tang Dynasty and Taiping Yu Lan in the Song Dynasty, all recounted this story in Wu Jun's "Continuation of Qi and Harmony of Things", arguing that the custom of women tying dogwood bags on their arms to ward off evil spirits and avoid disasters came from this. Like most traditional festivals, the Double Ninth Festival has ancient legends.

Gan Bao's "Sou Shen Ji" says: There is a man in Quanjiao County of Huainan who married Xie Jia in the same county. Because Xie Jia is a rich family, her mother-in-law is cruel, cruel and abusive, forcing her to do heavy housework and often being scolded and beaten. Shi Ding finally couldn't bear it, and hanged himself on the Double Ninth Festival. After his death, he hugged Wu Zhu tightly and said, "A wife works hard every day and can't rest. Please don't let your husband's family work again on the Double Ninth Festival. " Therefore, Jiangnan people give women a rest every year on the Double Ninth Festival, which is called "rest day". This woman named Shi Ding built a shrine for offering sacrifices, named Dinggu Temple. After the Double Ninth Festival, parents will take their married daughters home to eat flower cakes. In the Ming Dynasty, the Double Ninth Festival was even called "Daughter's Day".

Liu Hanxin's Miscellaneous Notes on Xijing records that after killing Mrs. Qi, the beloved concubine of Emperor Gaozu Liu Bang, Mrs. Qi's maid Jia was also expelled from the palace and married Duan Ru, a man who helped the wind. When chatting, she mentioned that when she was in the imperial court, she wore dogwood, ate tent bait and drank chrysanthemum wine every September 9 to ward off evil spirits and prolong life.

Shen Quanqi, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, once wrote the poem "Nine-Day Pavilion Night Banquet Should Be Long": "Wei Jurui, a gift to the capsule ... celebrates the ninth anniversary every year, and the sun and the moon are long".

Wang Bo Biography of Old Tang Dynasty records that Wang Bo's Preface to Wang Tengting was written on the Double Ninth Festival. At that time, Wang Bo's father served as the Toe Cross, and Wang Bo went to visit his father. On September 9th, when I visited Nanchang, Taoist Yan of Hongzhou hosted a banquet for the guests and their subordinates in the rebuilding museum. He wanted to show off the talent of his son-in-law Wu, so he took out a pen and paper in advance and invited the guests to write a preface. All the guests knew his intentions, and no one dared to do so. Unexpectedly, Wang Bo didn't know Zhou's intention in advance, so he picked up a pen and paper without humility. Zhou Mu was very angry at first, and immediately sent someone to watch Wang Bo's writing. Who knows that Wang Bo's brilliance and long-term accumulated emotions are completely vented, and the article is getting better and better. When I wrote the words "Sunset is the same as lonely Qi Fei, autumn water is the same", I couldn't help but marvel at it! From then on, Wang Bo became famous in the field of poetry.

Folk stories inherit the plot outline of "Continued Harmony", and with the plot created by folk artists, many different versions of the Double Ninth Festival legend have also been produced. Here, I chose three different essays to show you.

The first one: Once upon a time, there was a man named Huan Jing in runan county. He, his parents, his wife and his family are guarding several plots of land and living in peace. Who knows that something unexpected will happen, and a plague suddenly prevailed on both sides of the Ruhe River, killing many people. When I was in Jingzi, I heard an adult say that there lived a plague demon in Ruhe River, which came out every year to spread plague and endanger the world. In order to kill the villagers, Huan Jing learned that there lived a fairy named Fei Changfang on the southeast mountain. He decided to go and have a look.

On the Double Ninth Festival, who knows, he crossed thousands of waters in Qian Shan, but he still couldn't find any trace of the immortal. One day, he suddenly saw a white dove standing in front of him and nodding to him. When Huan Jing approached him, the pigeon suddenly flew two or three feet away and kept looking at Huan Jing after landing. In this way, Huan Jing followed the white dove and finally found the Xianju of Fei Changfang. Huan Jing walked to the door and knelt respectfully for two days and two nights. On the third day, the door suddenly opened, and a white-haired old man smiled and said to him, "Disciple is anxious to kill people, come with me to the hospital."

Fei Changfang gave Huan Jing a dragon sword to subdue the demon and asked him to practice the method of subduing the demon. One day Huan Jing was practicing his sword, and Fei Changfang came up to him and said, "On September 9 this year, the plague god of Ruhe will come out to harm people again. Hurry back to your hometown to kill pests for the people. I'll send you a bag of dogwood leaves and a bottle of chrysanthemum wine to let the elders in your hometown climb the mountain to avoid disaster. " After that, he recruited a crane with his hand and carried the dreamland back to Runa.

Huan Jing returned to his hometown and told everyone what Fei Changfang said. On September 9, he took the whole village to a nearby mountain. Give everyone a leaf of Cornus officinalis to keep plague demons away. Then pour out the chrysanthemum wine, and everyone took a sip, saying that they could avoid the plague. After the arrangement, he returned to the village with the demon dragon sword, waiting to slay the plague god.

After a while, the wind roared in your river, and the god of plague came out of the water and went ashore. Suddenly, I looked up and saw the crowd gathered on the mountain. It rushed down the hill, but was frightened by the smell of alcohol and dogwood. When I turned around, I saw Huan Jing pull out his sword and played several rounds with Mo Wen. Mo Wen couldn't beat him, but turned and ran. Huan Jing shot the sword with a whoosh, and the sword flashed, and the plague demon was nailed to the ground in the blink of an eye.

Since then, the people on both sides of the Ruhe River have never been attacked by the plague. The custom of climbing mountains to avoid disaster on September 9 has been passed down from generation to generation.

The second type: spread in Guanzhong area of Shaanxi Province.

It is said that a long time ago, there lived a peasant family at the foot of Mount Li. The whole family is very diligent and has a good life.

One day, the master came back from other places and met a fortune teller on the road. Because it's getting dark, this gentleman hasn't found a place to rest. Because the owner's house is very narrow, there is only one thatched ovary, so I made a thatched shop in the kitchen, let my wife and children sleep on the thatched shop, and I slept on the kang with Mr. Zhugua, making do with it.

At dawn the next day, Mr. Pig melon will leave. The farmer woke up his wife, cooked a meal for Mr. Zhu and wrapped a bag of white steamed bread for Mr. Zhu. Mr. Shugua went out and looked at the banker's place, urging him to say, "By September 9, the whole family will be tall."

The peasant family thought, I didn't do anything strange on weekdays, and I didn't want to be promoted. What should I do in a higher place? But on second thought, people often say that fortune tellers can read Feng Shui and are proficient in astronomy. Maybe something will happen where I live. On September 9th, we went for a walk in a high place to show the whole family the scenery.

On September 9, farmers took their wives and children, carrying flowers, cakes and wine, and climbed to the top of Mount Li to play. After they went up the mountain, a spring suddenly rushed to his house halfway up the mountain and washed away his hut at once. It didn't take much effort, and the whole ravine was soaked. Only then did the peasant family understand why Mr. Zhugua asked his family to climb the mountain on September 9.

After the news spread, people helped the old and brought the young to climb the mountain on September 9 of the summer calendar every year, which has been passed down to this day.

The legend of eating Chongyang cake

The origin of Chongyang Flower Cake has long been said. The Book of Southern Qi (Volume 9) said that before Emperor Wu of Song was promoted to Jin, there was a double ninth festival in Pengcheng one year. On a whim, he rode his horse onto Xiang Yu's horse stage. After he ascended the throne and proclaimed himself emperor, he made September 9th the day of riding horses, shooting arrows and reviewing the army. According to legend, the popular Chongyang cake at that time was dry food for soldiers that year.

There is another legend circulating near Shaanxi. According to legend, Kang Hai, the top scholar of the Ming Dynasty, was a martial artist in Shaanxi. In mid-August, he fell ill in Chang 'an. After the announcement in August, the newspaper reporter who reported the good news took pains to send the good news to the martial arts school, but Kang Hai hasn't arrived home yet. No one at home sent a gratuity, and the newspaper refused to leave, so we must wait until Kang Hai came back. When Kang Hai gets home, it's already the Double Ninth Festival. At this time, he sent a newspaper, paid him, and steamed a pot of cakes as dry food for his return trip. More cakes are steamed and distributed to neighbors. Because this kind of cake was used to celebrate the first place in Kang Hai, it was a good sign that families with children attending school later distributed steamed cakes on the Double Ninth Festival. The custom of eating cakes on the Double Ninth Festival spread like this.