Legends about the New Year

In ancient times, there should have been many different legends about Nian.

One of them says that in ancient times, there was no custom of Spring Festival. There is a kind of monster called Nian often comes out to plunder human food. At first humans fought against it, but they couldn't defeat it. So the humans sent a few good talkers to reason with the monster. Hopefully it will stop doing evil, and then humans will feed it. The monster, called Nian, agreed. So humans began to yield to it and the monster kept its contract, only coming out on the 30th day of the twelfth month of the year to eat its due offerings.

In this year, the monster lived in peace with humans and never did evil, and humans approved of its improvement and began to welcome it. People put up couplets and hung lanterns to welcome the brave animal, but no firecrackers.

There was a drought one year, and humans offered only a very small amount of food, and the monster of the year did not eat enough, and when it was hungry, it suddenly robbed mankind of the only seed food that was left to plant the next spring. As the saying goes, it is better to eat my mother than to eat seeds, so the precious seeds can be seen. However, the monster of Nian ate it, and the people made firecrackers with gunpowder to drive away the monster of Nian in their sadness and anger.

Hiding in the corner of the year to feel their own wrong, ashamed of it to find humans, hoping to use themselves as a big bag of food as a seed, so that humans immediately planted it buried in the soil.

In the spring of the following year, many crops of food appeared here, and mankind once again had seeds, and life could continue.

So people like the year more, and warmly invited to participate in the human Spring Festival, to celebrate the festival together. So firecrackers say goodbye to the old year, usher in the New Year and new work, this is the human, this is the human year.