Histoire de la nouvelle année | Histoire pour s'endormir

History of the New Year In a large number of countries, the holidays take place during the darkest days in the coldest winter. In Asia, there are all kinds of people who celebrate all kinds of holidays. Each group has its traditions and its stories. But there is, however, a holiday that everyone celebrates, and it is the Lunar New Year. This holiday always falls between mid-January and mid-February. Each inhabitant places red blood stamps around their front door. On these are written, in beautiful writing, a lot of good wishes for the New Year. In addition, at dawn, the inhabitants blow up firecrackers. This story is one of the stories that explains why people do these things. A long time ago, when powerful dragons lived on earth and in the seas, no one in Taiwan celebrated the Lunar New Year. Even in a certain village, this day was the worst day of the year because an inhabitant had killed a sea dragon. However, everyone knows that this is a terribly unfortunate thing to do because the dragon's ghost came back to haunt the village every year at the dawn of the New Year. When he appeared, he shook his horrible head and shouted, I'm hungry, give me a firstborn son to eat. No, no, we won't do that, replied the villagers in tears. We won't give you any children to eat. Then I'll kill you all. And the dragon's ghost blew his stinking and hot breath towards the village. The smoke spread everywhere and the villagers began to cough. Some even lost consciousness. The wisest man in the village, realizing that the dragon's ghost could easily kill them all, decided against his will to give birth to a newborn child to save the rest of the village. He hoped that with this offering, the dragon's ghost would never come back. But year after year, the ghost came back. And year after year, a family had to sacrifice their firstborn son to satisfy the animal's voracity. One year, it was the turn of the young widow Teng to sacrifice her only child, a handsome boy who was going to be five years old. As tradition would have it, every day before the lunar new year, the Taoist priest left the temple and went through the village to the house of the unfortunate who had to sacrifice his firstborn. As he walked towards the creek, where the house of the widow Teng was, all the villagers wondered, Where is he going this year? To the widow Teng, said a woman. Oh no, not to her! It's her only child, shouted another. The neighbors of the widow Teng had gathered all around the house. They expected to hear cries of pain when she would learn the terrible news. But nothing. No sound came from her little house. When the priest left, they rushed to see what had happened. They found her sitting in her kitchen. Didn't the priest tell you the news? Yes, he told me, replied the widow calmly. But why don't you cry? Because I don't have time to cry, said the widow Teng. I'm thinking of a way to drive the ghost of a dragon. He won't have my son. For three days and three nights, she crawled to the ground trying to make a plan. From time to time, she would take a break and look at her son playing in the courtyard. She also prayed at her ancestors' altar and at all the gods she knew by name. When her son fell asleep, she sat next to him and gently caressed his face, which looked so much like his father's. She even consulted the good fortune teller. But no one knew what to do. The situation seemed desperate. Tired of waiting so long, of walking so much, of praying so much, she fell asleep, exhausted on the floor in front of the family's ancestors' altar. Her little son, who had seen her, thought he absolutely shouldn't wake her up because she might be dreaming and he didn't want to interrupt her dream. Thank goodness for that, because indeed her mother was dreaming. Because she hadn't slept for three days, a mass of dreams came to her in an orderly fashion. She saw dragons and ghosts, fear and fear, innocent children and pain, blood and loud noise, and then joy, all of it swirling in her head. A few hours before dawn, she woke up and gently shook her head, still in pain from having dreamed so much. And then the miracle happened. The sewn-up images came together and she knew what to do. The dragons in her dream were afraid of two things. They were afraid of seeing blood and afraid of loud noise. But when someone is afraid, they usually run away. My plan will be simple, she thought. I will put blood on my door and make so much noise that the dragon's ghost will be frightened and run away. But blood... I am so poor that I don't even have a chicken to kill to take its blood. So she took her sharpest knife and cut herself at the tip of her finger, dropping drop by drop her blood on a fabric until all the drops joined together and completely covered the cloth. She took the fabric and hung it outside, on her door. She thought, make loud noises. Firecrackers would be the best, but I don't have any and I am so poor that I won't be able to buy any. And besides, there is no shop open today. She thought and thought of the bamboos. She knew that when pieces of bamboo burn, they melt into a terrible noise. So she took her sharpest knife and went into the cold to cut a dozen large pieces of bamboo. She placed them in pyramids in front of her door, just below the blood-stained fabric. So arranged, they would burn quickly and explode all at once. When should I light the fire? She thought. Just in time. Not too early, not too late, so that it would explode in the face of the ghost of a dragon. She lit a small torch and crouched in the embers of the door, waiting for the dawn and the coming of the ghost of a dragon. She waited and waited. She waited so long that it seemed to her that the sun was frozen and she would not return that day. Everything was calm, so calm that the only noise she heard was the beating of her heart. Finally, the moon and the stars began to disappear from the sky. Weakly, she heard the scream of the ghost of a dragon. Was it time to light the fire? The ghost was too far away. Everyone in the village was lying in bed under the edredons and blankets. No one was sleeping, knowing that the widow was waiting for the ghost of a dragon. Only her son was sleeping from the sleep of an angel. We heard a scream. The ghost of a dragon must have been down in the middle of the village. It was time for her to light the fire. The widow took her lantern, tilted it towards the bamboo pyramid and lit it. She heard the earth shaking under the weight of the ghost of the dragon walking towards his little house. He was coming down his alley. He was approaching. Arriving in front of her house, the ghost of a dragon stopped in front of the house and, seeing the blood-stained bamboo pyramid, began to scream so loudly that all his bones trembled. At the same time, the fire of the bamboo burst. The ghost of a dragon, terrified by the sight of human blood and by the bamboo bursting, ran away through the village. As for the widow Teng, she sat down and tears of relief began to fall on her cheeks. The people of the village ran. The bells rang from all sides. The gongs celebrated this great day, while the firecrackers made the joy burst. And since that day, every year, little red papers are born around the doors and firecrackers are lit at dawn. The ghost of a dragon never came back.