Crooked Science

On Chinese Valentine's Day, we want to talk about the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl.

Origin & Version

There are actually many versions of Cowherd and Weaver Girl.

For example, the section where Weaver Girl returns to heaven and ascends to heaven is actually quite crucial.

Some said that the Emperor of Heaven captured it, some said that the Queen Mother captured it, and some said that the Weaver Girl found a way to get the feather coat and flew back. There are many branches in the plot of how Zhinu got her feather coat back and why the Queen Mother and Emperor wanted to capture Zhinu.

I prefer the third version. This corresponds to the plot of Cowherd hiding Yuyi. The context seems smoother. Weaver Girl is a good fairy who was hidden by Yuyi and was forced to stay. How come she fell in love with her later? Does the Queen Mother have to capture her and take her back?

The first two types of facial makeup are the same, too straight-laced.

However, many people who study this story like the version in which the Weaver Girl was forced to return to heaven, because it has a "clear anti-feudal color and reflects the working people's pursuit of free love."

According to the version of the Weaver Girl's own return, this story has been divided by academic circles into the "Swan Virgin Type Story" and the "Bath Series". Swan Virgin Type stories can be found in legends around the world.

Liu Shouhua said: "Forcing men to get married by stealing feather clothes is a symbolic reflection of the custom of bride-robbing. Women flying away after finding feather clothes embodies women's nostalgia for the matrilineal clan or tribal life."

Andersen's story "The Marsh King's Daughter" also has elements of the Swan Virgin. This story is so beautiful!

Speaking of bathing, before the founding of the People's Republic of China, "Tianhe Pei" was performed everywhere on Chinese Valentine's Day. In order to attract the audience, many scenes reenact the scene of stealing clothes.

It is said that when Li Wanchun's Ming Chun Club performed "Tianhe Pei" at the Qingle Theater, the advertisement was very concise and concise. It was called "Bring a movie and have a fairy take a bath."

There is a goblin taking a bath

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, this play was reformed and changed a lot. The plot of taking a bath with great fanfare was naturally gone.

We are familiar with "The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl" from the middle school Chinese textbook of the People's Education Press, which was adapted by Ye Shengtao in 1995. When the Cowherd heard that the Weaver Girl was looking for clothes, he took the initiative to return the clothes to her, and the two chatted. After chatting, we decided to live together.

In this story, the image of the Queen Mother is naturally very bad. In many versions before this, the image of the Queen Mother was actually very tender. Some said that she took her daughter home because she thought her daughter was not doing well, or some said that when the Weaver Girl escaped in a feather coat, she was threatened by the Cowherd and called for help. After alarming the Queen Mother, she took the hairpin to draw a river.

Ye Shengtao's adaptation had a great influence, and many subsequent versions of the story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl were derived from it.

Let’s look back at the origins of this myth.

At present, many opinions believe that the germination of this myth occurred in the pre-Qin Dynasty, formed in the Han and Jin Dynasties, and matured from the Tang Dynasty to the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

In the pre-Qin era, the Morning Glory and the Weaver Girl were regarded as two sets of stars.

Judging from early literary works, although people sometimes mention these two together, and the name seems to match a man who works as a farmer and a woman who weaves, there is no real evidence that they are related. love relationship.

The atmosphere is a bit awkward

It is generally believed that the love relationship between Morning Glory and Weaver Girl began in "Nineteen Ancient Poems" of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and this poem is very confident from the beginning. , it sounds like it’s true: far away Altair, bright and clear river Hannu. The slender hands are slender, and they are doing tricks. I can't make up my mind all day long, and my tears are like rain. The river is clear and shallow. How far has it gone? There is a room full of water, and the pulse is speechless.

Later it was said that the "Rishu" of the Qin State during the Warring States Period recorded the death anniversary of "taking (marrying) a wife": "Wushen and Jiyou, the cows were brought to take (marry) the Weaver Girl, not "Fruit, three abandons."

The meaning is: Wushen and Jiyou are not suitable for marriage, because it is the time when the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl marry, and the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl have no results. If you marry on this day, your husband will abandon his wife three times.

This shows that the legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl was probably very widespread during the Warring States Period.

However, it can also be seen that the story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl does not seem so auspicious at this time, and the Chinese Valentine's Day is also regarded as an unlucky day.

Unfortunate Days

Probably starting from the Western Han Dynasty, the "fruitless" of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl was gradually downplayed, and the annual "reunion" was emphasized. Gradually, the Chinese Valentine's Day became Good times and auspicious days are related to love.

The seventh day of July

As for why the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl meet on the seventh day of July.

Because the number seven has a great relationship with the life, death and reproduction of human beings.

For example, in ancient times, there was the Human Day Festival on the seventh day of the first lunar month. According to "Records of the Years of Jingchu", "Book of Northern Qi·Wei Shou Zhuan", "Taiping Yulan", etc., when Nuwa created the world, after creating animals such as chickens, dogs, pigs, sheep, cows and horses, the seventh God created man, so his birthday falls on the seventh day of the first lunar month. On this day, everyone will eat soup made from seven kinds of vegetables, and put paper cutouts on them or wear them on their heads.

God: One question, shouldn’t we have Sunday off?

Moreover, the number seven is also related to death, such as the custom of making seven for the deceased that has been passed down to this day.

So the seventh day of July with two sevens is of great significance.

The Cowherd represents farming, and the Weaver Girl represents textiles. It is very appropriate that these two together can take the seventh day of July.

Magpies build bridges

There is a key thing in the meeting of Cowherd and Weaver Girl, magpies build bridges.

We can also see from the allusion we quoted earlier that in the original version of the story, there was no image of the Magpie Bridge.

So it was later that someone forcibly added the magpie.

The question is, why use magpies to build bridges?

According to the folk version, it is because the old cow fed his meat to the magpie after his death. In order to repay the favor, the magpie built a bridge to cross the river to meet the two people on July 7 every year. This is a legend.

What did the magpie eat secretly and how do you treat it like this?

Some scholars say that because magpies are yang birds, birds that bring good news, and are symbols of love, and everyone worships them, they are used to build bridges.

This statement is very mainstream.

But in fact, this explanation does not stand up to thought. The magpie is a bird that brings good news. You love it, so why don’t you just fly around the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl? Building bridges is tiring.

Besides, there are many auspicious birds that represent love. The swan is bigger, so why bring the magpie?

The distance between Altair and Vega is about 16 light-years. Based on the average body length of magpies, which is 45 centimeters, if the magpies build a bridge in a row, it is said that there must be 3.4 billion magpies

So I more support the statement in "Customs": "It is said that for seven days, all magpies' heads will be flat for no reason, because Liang Yidu was the Weaver Girl."

What do you mean, in July, the magpie's head I suddenly become bald, and I don’t know why.

It just so happens that the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl are going to meet each other these days.

Everyone said that the magpie was afraid of being stepped on when he was trying to build a bridge, right?

This statement is very good, full of the wisdom of the working people, and well-founded. After all, July is a good season for shedding.

Enjoy the bald photos? Pay attention to the head (the picture comes from Birds.com)

Let’s stop by to gossip about magpies.

The Latin name of the magpie is Pica pica. It still looks very cute.

Pika, pika?

However, Magpie is not a soft girl at all, she is particularly good at fighting and has a high IQ.

We know the famous "mirror test". This test was proposed by Gallup Gordon in 1970. It is to give the test subject a mirror and then pass a series of tests to see if it can know It's myself in the mirror.

Magpies are currently the only non-mammals that have passed the mirror test.

Fall in love with yourself

The closest relative to the magpie is the crow.

Crows and magpies are quite interesting. The image of the crow changes from "auspicious" to "unfortunate", while the image of the magpie, in turn, changes from "unfortunate" to "auspicious". changes. Of course, it is not entirely "unfortunate", but at the beginning, it often has dual meanings of bad and good.

This is just a general trend. In addition, there are many studies on the differences between the likes and dislikes of magpies and crows by people from the north and the south. Some people pointed out that crows may be the bridge builders.

Some scholars pointed out that by the Tang Dynasty, magpies began to be widely regarded as a good omen. And roughly starting from the Tang Dynasty, the word "magpie" officially began to be used together.

This change makes people feel very hanging.

Professor Xia Yan put forward an explanation, saying that it was because the middle reaches of the Yellow River during the Han and Wei dynasties had rich forest resources, so magpies should have been everywhere at that time, and they were doing whatever they were supposed to do, and there was no need to go there. They are close to humans but relatively wild. People's common understanding of magpies is that their nests are high in trees and alienated from humans. The adult bird colonies are huge and their chirps are noisy. This is an important factor in the formation of the concept of magpies as a bad omen.

During the Tang Dynasty, the climate changed from cold to warm, forests degraded, and wild animal and plant populations decreased. "Because they lost the support of tall trees, they had to find some lower trees to build their nests. In the process of this environmental change, magpies gradually became closer to human settlements, and the habits of their relatives began to emerge. "

Everyone has feelings everywhere, and some people deliberately plant trees in the courtyard to attract magpies to make their nests.

Here we circle back to the Magpie Bridge. The formation of the Magpie Bridge element is believed to have occurred in the Tang Dynasty.

Because the historical materials about the Magpie Bridge that can be found now are an unknown passage in "Huainanzi" cited in Volume 9 of Bai Juyi's "Bai Shi Liu Tie Shi Lei Ji" "The black magpie fills the river to form a bridge and crosses the Weaver Girl. "The other article is an unknown article in the Han Dynasty Ying Yun's "Customs and Customs" quoted in the third volume of "Sui Hua Jili" written by Han'e of the Tang Dynasty, "The Weaver Girl should cross the river on the Qixi Festival and use the magpies as a bridge."

However, no one has seen the original texts of the two lost texts, and judging from the available information from the Han Dynasty, no one else has said anything about Magpie Bridge.

Everyone smiled slightly, as if they understood something.

Therefore, some scholars speculate that the legend of Magpie Bridge in the two lost texts is likely to be elements added by the Tang Dynasty people based on the original story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl based on their own characteristics of the times.

If you step on those four cow hooves and four feet, you will definitely become bald.

In addition to the previous explanation, it is possible that this is the case.

In the Tang Dynasty, people loved magpies very much. They always flew around under the eaves, which was so cute.

Suddenly for a few days, around the Chinese Valentine's Day, the magpie became bald for no reason.

Both the magpie and the person are a little embarrassed.

Then everyone kindly explained that they must have been stepped on to build a bridge for the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl.

(Dense fog)

For business cooperation, please contact?toutiao@ckncloud.com