Stories about Off-year _ What are the folklore about Off-year?

"Off-year" is the prelude to the Spring Festival. When the "off-year" is over, it will completely enter the "Spring Festival time". Until New Year's Eve, people will greet the fiery China Year in "one night for two years". This small series has compiled stories about off-year for your reference.

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The story of Xiao nian

What is particular about the custom of offering sacrifices to stoves in off-year

What are the folklore about off-year?

The story of Xiao nian

Once upon a time, there was a greedy emperor. Wherever he goes, he wants to taste something he has never eaten.

One day, he was wandering in the village and met a beautiful girl. The girl is carrying a basket. What's in it? The emperor asked curiously. The girl opened the basket. Wow, what a big jujube cake!

The emperor has eaten many good things, but he has never eaten jujube cakes. He said to the girl, "Give me some, I am the emperor!" " "The girl smiled and handed the basket.

The emperor wolfed down the jujube cake in three bites. After eating, I burped: "Oh, it's delicious!"

Then, the emperor had a bad idea: "I want to take this girl back to the palace and let her make jujube cakes for me every day"!

He said to the girl, "You can make me another 7749 yuan jujube cake right away. If you can't do it, I will take you away. " The girl listened and said unhurriedly, "Good!"

She took off the golden hairpin on her head and grabbed the basket. Huh? Strange things have happened. The basket is steaming, no more, no less, just 7749 pieces of jujube cake. It's amazing!

The emperor hasn't understood yet. When he couldn't see the girl, he went behind her back to feed him. This girl turned down the emperor! The emperor was very angry and insisted on taking the girl away. He reached out and grabbed it. . .

The girl reached out and slapped the emperor on the stove, and the emperor immediately stuck to the wall.

This is not good: the emperor wants to come down, but he can't come down anyway. This day happens to be the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month.

"Who let you greedy! This time, others will sit at your station and others will eat and watch! " After that, the girl set up colorful clouds and went to heaven. The greedy emperor became the kitchen god.

Since then, Kitchen God has stood by the fire every day and watched people eat every day.

After a long time, people feel sorry for the kitchen god-after all, there is nothing wrong with loving food. So ... On the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, people put delicious food on the kitchen god, which is called "offering sacrifices to the kitchen". On this day, the children are happiest. They eat jujube cakes, persimmons, walnuts, sugar cakes and honeydew melons with the Kitchen God. It is said that after the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month, Kitchen God will tell the Jade Emperor what happened in the past year. He has a sweet mouth after eating honeydew melon. When you meet the jade emperor, you only say good things about him.

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What is particular about the custom of offering sacrifices to stoves in off-year

Eat honeydew melons when offering sacrifices to Kitchen God, and offer honeydew melons to make his mouth sweeter. When God reports to the Jade Emperor, he will say more good things.

Put up a portrait of Kitchen God. The old portrait of the kitchen god has been torn down, and every household must "please" come back with a new portrait of the kitchen god.

Cut the window grilles. Window grilles are beautiful in shape and rich in variety.

Set off firecrackers. The firecrackers of off-year are the first guns of the year before, and they are highly valued.

Eat jiaozi. Eating jiaozi on New Year's Eve means "seeing jiaozi off against the wind".

Eat fire. In Henan, in the off-year, every household has to make their own fire to cook and eat, which is almost equal to off-year.

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What are the folklore about off-year?

Legend 1: Why do you want to sacrifice stoves in off-year?

According to legend, Kitchen God was originally a civilian, Zhang Sheng. After marriage, he spent all his time drinking, losing everything and begging in the streets. One day, he begged at his ex-wife Guo Dingxiang's house, ashamed and burned to death under the stove. When the Jade Emperor knew about it, he thought that Zhang Sheng would change his mind, and it wouldn't be bad in the end. Because he died at the bottom of the pot, he was named the kitchen god. Every year, he went to heaven on the 23rd and 24th of the twelfth lunar month and returned to the bottom of the stove on the New Year's Eve. The people think that the kitchen god must be respected because he wants to repay the kindness to heaven. Therefore, people celebrate the "off-year" on the 23rd and 24th of the twelfth lunar month, praying for peace and wealth in the coming year.

Legend 2: Why do you want to eat stove candy in off-year?

Legend has it that Lv Mengzheng, the prime minister of the Northern Song Dynasty, was born in poverty and wandered around. Later, he and his mother lived in a temple in Yonghe County, northeast of Zhangde area, which is now Hongyuan Temple in Caoma Village, Anyang County. The elders in the temple are knowledgeable and skilled, and they have a unique skill in making flavor snacks-making sesame candy.

Lv Mengzheng is poor, but he is smart and studious, so he is highly valued by his elders. The elders not only teach him to read, write and write poems every day, but also often reward some sesame candy for his mother and son to taste. On the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month in 976, people were busy sending the Kitchen God to heaven. Lv Mengzheng saw that people used food to worship the kitchen god, but he had nothing to worship the kitchen god, so he put the hemp candy in the temple on the painting of the kitchen god.

When the kitchen god returned to the Heavenly Palace, when the emperor asked him, he wanted to talk but couldn't open his mouth, just nodded blindly. The Jade Emperor thought that "Kitchen God" praised Lv Mengzheng's character again and again, so he made a decree to bless him and named him Lv Mengzheng. The following year, Lv Mengzheng really ranked first among the hundred candidates in the world and won the first prize.

In return for the education and help of his elders, he expanded the temple and allocated 500 tons of yellow rice, 500 tons of wheat and 100 tons of sesame seeds, so that the elders could widely teach the skills of making sesame candy as the basis for local people to make a living. Since then, on the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, people have followed Lv Mengzheng's example and offered sesame candy to the Kitchen God, praying for the jade emperor's blessing. In this way, from generation to generation.

Legend 3: Why do you eat jiaozi in off-year?

Jiaozi was called "Joule" in ancient times. There is a folklore that at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was a serious famine, many people got sick and many people had rotten ears. When Zhang Zhongjing, a famous doctor, was an official in Changsha, he found a vacant lot when he saw the epidemic of plague, and set up a medical shed and cauldron on the solstice of winter to deliver medicine to people and save many poor people.

Zhang Zhongjing's medicine is called "Quhan Joule Decoction". The method is: put mutton, pepper and some cold-dispelling herbs in a pot, stew them, pick them up, chop them up, then make them into ear-shaped things with dough, cook them in a pot and give them to patients. People call this kind of thing "Joule". People eat joules, then drink a bowl of soup, then their ears are hot, their blood is boiling, and soon their rotten ears will be cured. Zhang Zhongjing didn't give up taking medicine until New Year's Eve.

Off-year is also the beginning of Chinese New Year. In the past, from the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month to the 15th of the first month, even the whole first month was a year. In the past, farmers could not rest until they counted to nine in the dead of winter, which also reflected the adjustment function of the annual festival. It is natural to eat jiaozi during the Spring Festival, and it is a long-standing custom.

Legend 4: Why do you want to clean up in the off-year?

Every year during the Spring Festival, every household should have a general cleaning. People painted houses, cleaned furniture and dismantled bedding, which was called "Sweeping the Year Festival" in ancient times. The custom of sweeping dust originated in the Yao and Shun era and evolved from an ancient religious ceremony to drive away epidemics. During the Tang and Song Dynasties, "Sweeping the Year" prevailed. According to the Song Dynasty poet Wu's Dream, "December has passed? Scholars, big or small, must sweep the floor, remove dust and filth, and clean the family. Pray for peace in the new year. " Up to now, the proverb "On the 24th of the twelfth lunar month, dust sweeps the house" has been circulated among the people.

It is said that this custom originated from ancient legends. In ancient mythology, Zhuan Xu had a son who failed to live up to expectations. He was lazy, dressed in rags and drank very thin porridge. One year on New Year's Eve, he died in a corner, cold and hungry. Therefore, on New Year's Eve, people take the opportunity of cleaning to take out the rags and leftovers at home and throw them away before the arrival of the new year, indicating that they will not let the poor go home.

There is a strange story about the origin of sweeping dust in ancient times. Legend has it that everyone is attached to a three-corpse god. He often reports to the Jade Emperor and speaks ill of the world. In a very short time, the Jade Emperor received 99999 tips from him, saying that the world was going to rebel against heaven. When the Jade Emperor saw this, he was furious. He immediately summoned three corpse gods and ordered him to write their crimes on the walls of people who spoke ill of the Jade Emperor, and then let spiders weave a big net and hang it under the eaves. The Jade Emperor also ordered Wang Lingguan to go to the lower bound on New Year's Eve, and all families marked by the Three Corpses God would be beheaded. Seeing that the plot was about to succeed, they could monopolize the beautiful world. The three resin gods quickly descended to earth and marked the walls of each house.

The Kitchen God discovered the plot of three corpse gods, and quickly found the kitchen gods of each family to discuss countermeasures: from the day the kitchen delivered it, every family should clean it up before New Year's Eve. When Wang Lingguan visited the lower bound on New Year's Eve, he found that every household was clean without any trace, and the people were quiet and hardworking. The Jade Emperor learned from Wang Lingguan and Chef Jun that the Three Corpses God had wronged a good man and was furious. He put the Three Corpses God in prison forever. Since then, this kind cook has been welcomed by everyone. It is also a folk custom to offer sacrifices to stoves on the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month and sweep the dust on the 24th.

There is also a folk legend that the custom of sweeping dust comes from the tenant farmers in Tongzhou (now Nantong) to welcome the jade emperor's annual grain. Previously, the tenant farmers here were busy all the year round, except for paying food and rent. They prayed that the Kitchen God would say something nice when he got this gift on the 24th of the twelfth lunar month, so that the Jade Emperor could be merciful and allocate some gifts from the Tiancang so that they could have a big reunion dinner before New Year's Eve. In order to welcome the gift of the Jade Emperor, the tenant farmers cleaned the house inside and outside every year before the 28th of the twelfth lunar month, so that the national custom of sweeping dust during the Spring Festival was handed down from generation to generation.

On the 24th of the twelfth lunar month, every household is busy cleaning indoor and outdoor sanitation, cleaning mosquito nets and bedding, and even washing a laundry list of furniture, so as to clean up the inside and outside. Then take some old things to the village entrance and light them. It is called "sending them to the poor", which means burying all those unlucky things in exchange for good luck in the new year.

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The story of Xiao nian