Why do you hang mugwort leaves in front of the door during the Dragon Boat Festival?
During the Dragon Boat Festival, the weather is getting hotter, mosquitoes and flies breed, it is rainy and humid, bacteria multiply quickly, and it is easy to get sick. It is a scientific and practical method for people to drive away mosquitoes and flies and purify polluted air with the help of the fragrant smell of hanging mugwort leaves. From this point of view, inserting moxa sticks in the Dragon Boat Festival can play a very good role in maintaining room hygiene and promoting health.
The custom of hanging ghosts on the Dragon Boat Festival
Hanging ghosts on the Dragon Boat Festival is a very important custom and one of the important contents of the Dragon Boat Festival activities.
On the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, at dawn, people go to the wild in droves to collect mugwort sticks early and take them home to hang on the door. This custom is called "planting mugwort". The earliest record of the custom of inserting and hanging Ai ghosts is the Chronicle of Jingchu written by Zong Lin of the Six Dynasties: "Jingchu people take May 5, step on a hundred herbs, take Ai as a person (shape), and hang poison gas on the door."
In most parts of China, on the morning of Dragon Boat Festival, people are used to washing their faces, hands and bodies with water soaked in freshly picked mugwort leaves. It is said that washing your face, hands and body with mugwort leaves will not cause mosquito bites. In other places, people put mugwort leaves in their temples.
Folium Artemisiae Argyi can also be added to food. In ancient Zhejiang, zongzi was eaten during the Qingming Festival. In some places, mugwort zongzi was made of tender mugwort juice and glutinous rice, which was fragrant and could help digestion. There is a famous French wine called "Weimeisi", and its main spice is the juice of mugwort. The wine is sweet and sour, and some foreigners are used to drinking an aperitif before eating to stimulate their appetite.
Refined Folium Artemisiae Argyi oil is a good natural perfume oil, which has a strong grass fragrance and a natural cool feeling. Outsiders living in big cities feel depressed because of noisy environment and stressful life, and yearn for the tranquility and breath of nature. Therefore, they especially like natural, weed-type perfume cosmetics with wormwood oil as perfume.
Legend of hanging wormwood on Dragon Boat Festival
A long time ago, for several years in a row, the weather was favorable and the grain harvest was good. Every household has saved some wheat. Eat rice and white flour for every meal. As time goes on, people get tired of eating them. In this way, some people don't treat food as food, and they mess it up.
One day, Aunt Li Er in the East Village scoured for wheat, and the wheat was scattered all over the floor. Instead of picking it up, she put the scattered wheat and firewood in the stove and burned it. Another time, Mrs. Zhang in Nishimura was cooking, and all the pigs at home came to eat. She picked up some corn to feed the pigs. It happened that these two things were seen by immortals in the sky in the past, and it was a pity to waste food on earth at will, so I reported to the Jade Emperor in the next day.
Hearing this, the Jade Emperor flew into a rage when he thought that everyone in the world was like this. He sent Venus Taibai to visit the truth with the intention of bringing disaster to ordinary people.
Venus, pretending to be an old man, came to play on earth. He came to a farm yard and saw several seats drying wheat. A white-haired old woman was picking up scattered wheat grains one by one. Venus Taibai went to the underpass. "Old lady, why do you still care about these grains with such a good harvest?" The old lady sighed and said, "I came from a famine year. I have no food and am hungry." If this year is good, you will never forget the bitterness of the past. Without this grain, there would be a thousand stones and a hundred battles. Seeing that what the old lady said was reasonable, Taibai Venus said, "It's a sin that you always try to persuade the younger generation to scrimp and save food and waste food! "Say that finish and left. Before he went far, he heard a doll crying not far away: "mom, I won't throw and touch art again." "
Then he began to sob again.
Venus Taibai turned out to be a 10-year-old child, throwing leftovers on the ground and refusing. His mother forced him to pick them up and eat them in front of everyone. My son was afraid of being beaten by his mother, so he had to eat.
Seeing these two things, Venus Taibai felt that the world was not as bad as the fairy reported in the past. So I thought, if this disaster really came to the world, wouldn't it make thousands of good people in Qian Qian suffer? If you go back to the Heavenly Palace and report the Jade Emperor's anger truthfully, I'm afraid I won't believe it either, so it's not easy to get a job. He felt in a dilemma, but he used his quick wits and came up with a good idea. He hurriedly called the villagers together, explained his identity and the reason for coming to the earth, and advised everyone to save their lives and not to spoil food casually. Finally, I tell you: "On May 5th, the Jade Emperor personally inspected the world. If it is not robbed, every household should get up early to collect mugs and hang them on all doors and windows. _ Ai Tong is not an ordinary straw, it can cover the eyes of the jade emperor and the human village. " Then Venus Taibai disappeared in the blink of an eye.
The news soon spread to every household, and people made preparations early. On the morning of the Dragon Boat Festival on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, all the doors and windows were hung with newly picked mugs, which covered the world with a layer of green color and gave off a fragrance. Shi Mao, Jade and the Emperor stood in the worse gate and saw it. They were surprised that the world was so desolate and the director was covered with weeds. If disaster befalls people again, won't there be fireworks on the earth? He summoned the gods of the past, rebuked them and dismissed the idea of disaster.
Since then, in order to avoid disasters, diseases and insect bites, people take off mugs early in the Dragon Boat Festival every year and put them in the doors and windows. The ancient custom of hanging mugs has been handed down.