According to legend, Qu Yuan committed suicide by jumping into the Miluo River during the Dragon Boat Festival, so to commemorate Qu Yuan, it developed into the current Dragon Boat Festival. Realgar wine is a drink for the Dragon Boat Festival, a traditional Chinese festival. It is made from crushed realgar. Realgar should be placed in the sun to dry.
The Dragon Boat Festival is a ceremony in which ancient ancestors used dragon boat races to pay homage to their ancestors. According to legend, Qu Yuan committed suicide by jumping into the Miluo River during the Dragon Boat Festival, so to commemorate Qu Yuan, it developed into the current Dragon Boat Festival.
Realgar wine is a drink for the Dragon Boat Festival, a traditional Chinese festival. It is made from crushed realgar. Realgar should be placed in the sun to dry. Realgar is a traditional Chinese medicine, mainly used for detoxification and insecticide.
The Dragon Boat Festival is originally a day for the whole family to celebrate, but in Lin’an, Song Dynasty, hundreds of years ago, a tragedy of love was staged on the day of the Dragon Boat Festival.
Xu Xian, who was in the pharmaceutical business, let his wife Bai Suzhen drink a glass of realgar wine, but her stomach immediately started to writhe, revealing her real body, which frightened Xu Xian. Familiar stories tell us that realgar wine can drive away snake demons.
Modern people’s views on festivals are more festive and reunion. I am afraid that it is hard to imagine that many festivals in ancient times contained the deep meaning of “dispelling plague and evil spirits”.
In the ancient times when medical treatment was not yet prosperous and diseases were rampant, it was a grand joy to expel the plague through medical skills and even rituals.
The Dragon Boat Festival is at the beginning of May, the weather is warm, and the rainy season is approaching. It is hot, humid, and mosquitoes breed. It is the season when common infectious diseases spread widely. Therefore, eliminating plague has always been an important part of the Dragon Boat Festival.
The ancients even corresponded “plague” with the five viscera, and divided the plague into five types. According to the “Seven Yuan Zhenren Shuo Shen Zhen Ling Fu Jing”, there are five poisons in the plague.
The word “plague” is just an abstract noun, while the word “five poisons” is easier for ordinary people to understand.
According to folklore, the five poisons are snakes, geckos, centipedes, scorpions, and toads, and snakes are the most common and poisonous of the five poisons. As a result, the relationship between the Dragon Boat Festival and the snake was established, which led to the later story of the White Snake.
Realgar was not a good exorcist for the Dragon Boat Festival from the beginning. Before the Ming Dynasty, during the Dragon Boat Festival, people would use calamus, orchid and ai to drive away ghosts and snakes.
This herb has a certain bactericidal effect and can drive away plagues.
“Jingchu Sui Shi Ji” records: “May 5th”. This is the so-called “Bath orchid Festival”. The four peoples step on a hundred herbs together. Cai AI is considered a human being. Hang on the door. To eliminate poisonous gas. Use calamus or carved or crumbs to pan wine. ”
Later, the usage of calamus and wormwood became confused. Calamus is also used to ward off evil spirits, and it must be carved with gourds and human figures. The wormwood can be tied into the shape of a tiger, or it can be “cut off the color to make a tiger, and stick the wormwood leaves to wear it.”
Or you can drink it with calamus infused wine. These two kinds of herbs have a very high position in the folk customs of the Dragon Boat Festival, and they still exist today. In some places, the customs of hanging cattail swords and making sachets are often seen.
In ancient times, drinking realgar wine was very popular along the Yangtze River. There is an old saying: “Drinking realgar wine, all diseases will go away.” Realgar is a mineral called “cockscomb stone”. Its main component is mercury-containing sulfide, which is toxic.
Ordinary realgar wine is just a small amount of realgar added to white wine or homemade rice wine, and will not be brewed and drunk alone.
Realgar wine has the functions of antibacterial, deworming and detoxification. In ancient times, people would hang realgar around their waists, or make sachets made of realgar, angelica dahurica, lavender and other spices, which can also be used to drive away demons and snake poison.
In ancient times, when there was no disinfectant such as iodine, using realgar to make wine was a way to detoxify and relieve itching.
For underage children, adults will apply realgar wine on the forehead, ears, hands and feet, etc. to sterilize, prevent diseases, and repel insects.
The ancients said: “Only when you are young, you can’t forget to hold the forehead of Ai Zanpu.” It means that during the Dragon Boat Festival, children will pick mugwort leaves, use calamus and realgar wine to write the word “king” on their foreheads to drive away the plague.
Sprinkle realgar wine on the corners, under the bed and other places, which can not only repel mosquitoes, but also purify the environment. However, modern scientific research shows that realgar wine is okay for external use, but it is harmful when drunk, so it should be used with caution.
According to legend, after Qu Yuan committed suicide by jumping into the river, people in Qu Yuan’s hometown threw zongzi and salted eggs into the river to prevent the dragon from swallowing Qu Yuan’s body. An old doctor poured a pot of realgar wine into the river, which is said to make Jiaolong unconscious and protect Qu Yuan.
After a while, a flood dragon emerged from the water. Then they dragged the dragon to the shore, stretched its tendons, and skinned it.
Finally, these tendons were tied to the children, and realgar wine was applied to the seven orifices of the children, thinking that this would protect them from being poisoned by poisonous insects and snakes. According to legend, this is the origin of drinking realgar wine on the Dragon Boat Festival.
This is just a legend. So, since when did the folks really have the habit of drinking realgar wine?
According to historical records, “Wuzazu” said: “Drink calamus wine… and drink it with realgar. “There is also a record in “Yue Ling Guangyi”: on the fifth day of the lunar new year, cinnabar wine is used as food, which can detoxify. Applying wine on the forehead and limbs can avoid the infestation of poisonous snakes and insects. You can also sprinkle a layer of water on the walls and windows. , to drive away the bugs.”
This sentence is widely circulated among the people. “Wuzazu” covers all aspects of society at that time, and most of the relevant folk customs recorded were formed in the Sui and Tang Dynasties or the earlier Wei and Jin Dynasties.
Therefore, China first had the custom of drinking realgar wine on the Dragon Boat Festival in the Tang Dynasty.
But at that time, the output of realgar was very small, and the price was also high. Han Yu once wrote: “Food on strange things such as skygreen and realgar, one hundred thousand taels of silver per dose.” Just like many great tonics, such as Cordyceps and Dendrobium candidum, it is hard to find.
Therefore, in the Tang and Song Dynasties, drinking realgar wine was a luxury that was not enjoyed by ordinary people. The custom of drinking realgar wine on the Dragon Boat Festival has not yet spread.
After the Ming Dynasty, the amount of ore mined increased, and the refining technology became more efficient. Only in this way could the production of realgar be increased and the price of realgar finally be lowered.
Every household was able to afford it, and the custom of drinking realgar wine on the Dragon Boat Festival began to spread widely.
But in fact, realgar is a mineral that contains a lot of sulfur and arsenic.
“Chinese Pharmacopoeia” records that its main ingredient is arsenic disulfide, its content exceeds 90%, and it will be oxidized into arsenic compound at high temperature, which has stronger lethality.
When it comes to arsenic, everyone should think of arsenic, so drinking realgar wine is no different from drinking arsenic. As this custom began to change to use realgar to make wine, but instead of drinking, they only sprinkled wine.