A CHAPTER OF FOLKLORE 77 



are not so uniform. At Chuanchow in the southern part of 

 Fuhkien, "On the ninth day the people go up on the hills and 

 fly kites. This they call warding off public calamity." 

 (History of Fuhkien). In Kienning Fu, "they steam rice- 

 flour making five colored cakes with nine layers. These 

 they present to each other. They drink hellebore wine." 

 (History of Kienning). In Shaowu "they drink hellebore 

 wine and call it escaping evil. The scholars and officials 

 with baskets of wine ascend the hills. Relatives present 

 each other with fish and wine." (History of Fuhkien). 



In Formosa, "the boys make kites resembling the 

 sparrow-hawk or streamers in the temples, or the eight 

 diagrams. They vie with one another on the heights. As 

 the wind wafts the kites up or down they call it victory or 

 defeat. At night some hang lanterns on the kites and in 

 the distance they look like stars." (History of Formosa). 

 Similar customs obtain in all parts of China. 



The popular explanation of this festival is found in the 

 work Ching Chu Shih Chi (written 502-555 A.D.) which 

 quotes another work called the Hsu Ch'ai Hsieh Chi written 

 about the same time. The story is as follows: "Hwang 

 Ching of Yu Nan followed Fei Ch'ang Fang in his journeys 

 abroad for the purpose or study. Fei Ch'ang Fang lived 

 about the fourth century A.D. and was noted for his magic 

 cures. Ch'ang Fang said to Huan Ching: 'On the ninth 

 day of the ninth month Yu Nan will have a great calamity. 

 Very urgently you should order your family to weave small 

 bags filled with hellebore and hang them on their arms and 

 ascend the hills and drink aster wine. In this way you will 

 escape calamity.' Ching followed his advice and the whole 

 family climbed the hill. At night when they returned they 

 saw that the chickens, cows, and goats had met a violent 

 death at one time. When Ch'ang Fang heard of this he 

 said that the animals died in place of the members of the 

 family. The present custom of the ninth day of ascending 

 the hills and drinking wine and the women wearing bags 

 with hellebore had its origin in this occurrence." 



It is quite evident that this story did not originate the 

 festival, but that the festival is responsible for the story. On 

 the face of it, it is very unlikely that a little family affair 

 should be the cause of a festival observed in all parts of 

 China. There is a strong probability that the festival was 

 observed long before the day of Ch'ang Fang. In fact we 

 have a literary effusion on the festival by the emperor 

 Wen Ti of the Wei dynasty (220-227 A.D.). 



The popular story,, however, contains the germ of the 

 explanation of this festival. According to the story the 



