There are many legends about Mid-Autumn Festival. Here are five legends about Mid-Autumn Festival.
First, the autumn dusk and the evening moon
The evening moon is to worship the moon god. Legend has it that in the Warring States period, there was an ugly girl named Wuyan in Qi State. She was devout to Yue Bai when she was young, and later she entered the palace with superior moral character. Seeing the moon in the palace on August 15th of a certain year, it happened that Qi Xuanwang also wandered around the palace, and when she saw no salt in the moonlight, she felt beautiful and moving, so she was crowned as the queen. The custom of Mid-Autumn Festival in Yue Bai has been handed down ever since.
Second, the Goddess Chang'e flying to the moon
Hou Yi was deeply respected and loved by the people all over the world because he shot down nine suns in the sky and killed the people. Then he married the beautiful and kind Chang 'e as his wife. One day, Hou Yi went to Kunlun Mountain to visit friends and seek the Tao, and happened to meet the Queen Mother who passed by, so he asked the Queen Mother for two immortal elixirs. After taking one, he could live forever, and after taking two, he could ascend to heaven. Hou Yi could not bear to leave his wife and ascend to heaven himself, so he gave the two elixirs to Chang 'e for safekeeping.
Hou Yi had a disciple named Feng Meng, who was a villain. When Chang 'e hid the elixir in the treasure box, he peeped at it and got the idea of elixir. Three days later, Hou Yi led his disciples to hunt, but Feng Meng said he was ill and didn't go. After Hou Yi left, he held a sword and threatened Chang 'e to hand over the elixir. Chang 'e knew that she was no match for Feng Meng, so she quickly opened the treasure box and swallowed two elixirs in one breath. After Chang 'e swallowed the elixir, she immediately felt that her body was light and she was able to fly, so she flew out of the window and into the sky. Because she was worried about her husband Hou Yi, Chang 'e landed on the nearest moon.
When Hou Yi came home, the maids told him what happened during the day. Hou Yi was surprised and angry, and the villain Feng Meng had fled. Hou Yi was heartbroken, stamped his chest, looked up at the sky and shouted his wife's name. In the dim light, I found that the moon was particularly bright that night, which happened to be August 15, and there was a shaking figure in the moon, just like Chang 'e.
So Hou Yi sent people to Chang 'e's favorite back garden, put up incense tables and offered sacrifices to Chang 'e in the Moon Palace. Since then, every August 15th, ordinary people have also set up incense tables under the moon to worship Chang 'e and pray for good luck and peace for the beautiful and kind Chang 'e.
Third, the Mid-Autumn Uprising
At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang joined forces with local resistance forces to prepare for an uprising. Liu Bowen, a military adviser, came up with a clever plan. He took advantage of the opportunity of giving each other wheat cakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival, and put a note in the wheat cakes to convey the information of the uprising. He agreed to hold an uprising at the same time on the evening of August 15th. Later, when the uprising was successful, Zhu Yuanzhang handed down an edict. Every year on the Mid-Autumn Festival, he gave the "moon cakes" that conveyed information that year as holiday cakes to his ministers. Since then, the custom of eating moon cakes on Mid-Autumn Festival has been handed down.
Fourth, Wu Gang cut Guangxi
Legend has it that there is a laurel tree in the moon, and Huainanzi has said that "there is a laurel tree in the moon". Later, the legend is more specific, and WU GANG, a man who cut laurel, was added next to the laurel tree. The legend of the laurel tree and WU GANG in the middle of the month is the most concrete one contained in the first volume "Tianzhi" before Duan Chengshi's "Youyang Miscellaneous" in the Tang Dynasty. Its cloud says: "As the old saying goes, there are laurels and toads in the moon, so different books say that the laurel is 500 feet high, and there is a person who often digs it, and the tree creates it." The surname is Wu Minggang, a native of Xihe, and he has learned from immortals and ordered to cut down trees. " It means that Wu Gang once followed the immortal to the heaven, but he made a mistake, so the immortal sent him to the moon and ordered him to cut down the immortal tree-laurel. The laurel is as high as 500 feet, and it can be cut together. Emperor Yan used this endless labor as a punishment for WU GANG. In Li Bai's poems, there is a record that "if you want to be in the middle of the moon, you will pay for the cold."
V. Tang Gaozu and "Zhujie Cake"
The first protagonist of Mid-Autumn Festival is moon cakes. There are many legends about the origin of moon cakes, and the more popular view appeared in the Tang Dynasty. At the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, the East Turkic was powerful. When Li Yuan rose from Taiyuan, he surrendered to the Turkic Khan in exchange for the relative stability in the north. After the establishment of the Tang Dynasty, the Turks supported the separatist forces such as Xue Ju and Liu Wuzhou, and fought against the Tang Dynasty. On the other hand, he relied on the army to strengthen Ma Zhuang, and constantly invaded dispatch troops south. In order to pacify the foreign invasion in the north, Tang Gaozu Li Yuan appointed Li Jing, a famous general at that time, as the commander-in-chief of the Northern Expedition (marching general) to fight back against the Turks and finally win.
The day of Li Jing's triumph happened to be August 15, and it happened that Turpan people presented cakes to Li Yuan that night. Li Yuan was sharing the good news of Li Jing's victory with his ministers at that time. He was very happy to see the round cake. He smiled at the sky and blurted out, "You should invite toads to the Hu cake." The general meaning of this sentence is that the god of the moon should be invited to come down to earth to share this delicious Hu cake with everyone. Li Yuan then distributed Hu cakes to the ministers, who tasted them together and enjoyed the moon. It is said that the custom of eating moon cakes on the Mid-Autumn Festival on August 15th came from this and spread from the palace to the people.
In fact, this legend cannot be used as the basis for the origin of moon cakes. In ancient times, the ancients in China worshipped the sun, the moon, the stars and other celestial bodies, so there was a custom of "worshipping the sun in spring, Yue Bai in autumn, and astrology at night". When they were in Yue Bai, they always offered a small round cake, which was the embryonic form of moon cakes.
Among these legends, the Goddess Chang'e flying to the moon is the most famous and has a higher degree of inheritance, so we can't verify that it is the true origin of the Mid-Autumn Festival. But we should know these legends. If you have anything to add or say, please leave a message in the comments below for discussion.