When is the custom of sending fish to toads in leap month?
According to folk custom, every year in the leap month of the lunar calendar, the married daughter will steam noodles and toads and send them to her parents' house. The fish here stands for "wealth" and the toad stands for "health". There is also a folk saying: "Mother eats fish, father eats toad, and lives for thousands of years." And the saying that "send fish and toads before the leap month, and parents will live forever" also expresses the blessing of "more and more people live longer", praying for parents to live longer, be safe and healthy.
Fish and toads are usually delivered before the leap month begins.
Why does Leap Moon send fish and toad noodles to parents?
In ancient times, people used the lunar calendar to calculate the date. Every leap month in the lunar calendar means one more month this year. That is to say, although there are still two bumper harvests this year, the actual days are one more month, so many families are very short of food.
Therefore, kind and filial girls, in order to make their parents feel better in leap year, will deliberately steam pasta for a month, mainly fish and toads made of noodles. This is because folklore sends fish and toads to parents in leap years, which can eliminate disasters for parents.
The origin of leap month
In the old calendar year in China, the lunar year is generally 12 months, 354 days or 355 days a year, and a few years are 353 days (such as 1965), resulting in the total number of days in the lunar year being less than that in the solar calendar 1 1 day. In order to cooperate with the period of revolution of the Earth, the calendar stipulates that a leap month should be added every two to three years to make up for the difference between the days in the solar calendar and the lunar calendar.
Because the difference in the number of days between the lunar calendar and the solar calendar is not a regular number, how to add leap months is not very regular. With the accumulation of years and experience, people have discovered a rule of "7 leap years in 19 years", that is, in 19 years, seven leap months need to be added to make up for the difference in days.
The simple summary is: the lunar calendar has a leap in three years, two leap in five years and seven leap in nineteen years. Every month in a leap year is called a leap month. Adding a leap month after one month is called leap month. For example, in 2020, the leap month of the Year of the Rat is added after April of the lunar calendar, so it is called leap April.