Chapter 25 Section 4 Legend of the Origin of Things

Legends explain things differently than myths.Myth writers like to investigate the origin of all things in the world and human beings, which are some very big and profound questions.What they want to know is the formation of all rivers, animals and plants.The writers of legends are more detailed, and they explain the origin of things in a small way.For example, a river is not a general river, but a specific river; a cloud is not all clouds, but a certain piece of cloud in a specific area, why it is unpredictable and so on.Of course, the explanations of myths and legends are not scientific, but imaginative and artistic, and the explanations of legends are especially humane.

Legends are good at highlighting the most striking features of things and explaining them, such as why Xiangfei bamboo has spots, why Feilai Peak in Hangzhou is called this name, why the cuckoo’s cry makes people feel sad, why Wuzhi Mountain in Hainan Island has five fingers shape etc.This type of legend has an ancient origin, but its vitality is very tenacious. Until modern times and modern times, there are still new works.Here we only introduce a legend about silkworms and mulberry that evolved from mythology. "Shan Hai Jing Overseas Bei Jing" said: "In the field of Osi, in the east of the big (branch) heel, a woman kneeled on the tree Ousi."

It is said that people in the Zhijiao country cannot walk with their heels on the ground. In the east of the country, there is a woman who knelt on a tree and spun silk.This is a myth, that is, silk is spit out by women. In fact, silk is spit out by silkworms, which already implies that silkworms are transformed by women.Sericulture was originally invented by women. As mentioned earlier in this book, Leizu, the wife of the Yellow Emperor, was the first cultural hero to raise silkworms. It seems that the imagination of primitive ancestors who associated silkworms with women is not entirely groundless. .In the process of raising silkworms for a long time, people found that the heads of silkworms and horses are quite similar. With the legacy of primitive thinking such as animism, human-animal fusion, human-poultry intermarriage, etc., people also associated silkworms with women and horses at the same time. And created the silkworm horse legend. The fourteenth volume of "Sou Shen Ji" recorded this work for the first time, translated into modern Chinese, meaning:

Someone once said that in the ancient times, there was a chief who went on an expedition. There was no one else in the family, only a daughter, and a stallion (stallion), which was raised by the daughter.Because of the remote location, the girl felt very lonely. After a long time, she missed her father, so she said a joke to the stallion: "If you can bring my father back to me, I will marry you." With these words, he immediately broke the reins and went straight to the chief.When the chief saw his own horse, he rode on it in surprise. Unexpectedly, the horse always looked at the direction it came from and wailed endlessly.He thought: "This horse is not like this for no reason. Did something happen at home?" Then he hurried home.Feeling that the horse has special feelings, he carefully raised it, but the horse would not eat, and every time he saw a girl coming in and out, he would stand upright and fight hard every time he saw a girl coming in and out, and this happened more than once.When the father was very strange, he asked his daughter quietly, and the daughter told the father everything about it.The father said: "Don't tell it, it will shame the family. Don't go in and out again." The father shot the horse, peeled off the horse's skin and dried it in the courtyard.When the chief went out, the daughter and his neighbor's girlfriend played in front of the horse hide, and kicked the horse hide and said, "You are an animal, and you want to marry a man. Now you are slaughtered and skinned. You are asking for trouble." Her words Before he could finish speaking, the horse skin suddenly flew up, wrapping the girl up into the air.The girl next door did not dare to rescue her, so she hurried to tell the chief.The chief went home and searched everywhere, but he couldn't find it.A few days later, the horse skins and women turned into silkworms and distributed on a big tree.The silk produced by this kind of silkworm is very good in texture, which is different from common silkworms.Women all raise this kind of silkworm, which is many times stronger than ordinary silk.That big tree is called a mulberry tree.Sang and mourning are homonyms.Everyone is vying to plant this kind of tree to feed silkworms.

This apparently evolved from the myth of the marriage between man and beast. "Sou Shen Ji" is a strange novel compiled and compiled by Gan Bao in the Jin Dynasty. It widely uses folk myths and legends, and also contains the ideology and moral concepts of later generations.For example, "fear of humiliating the family" is a reflection of the concept of family status in feudal society.This legend is both educational and entertaining, admonishing people to keep their word, otherwise the consequences will be disastrous.