Why do your people have seasons?

[alexis_the_tiny]

Found the mandarin version of the rhyme and the English explanation behind it.
If you want the rhyme written in Mandarin, I can copy and paste it over. I cannot read Mandarin and have forgotten most of the Hokkien dialect ever since my grandmother passed away but I'll try to give a rough translation of it.

Anyway, the rhyme goes roughly like this: The sky is dark, it is going to rain, something or other about some water way, the sea dragon king is looking for a wife, Some turtle thing is beating a drum. Annd the final two lines completely elude me. But its a beautiful rhyme when sang in Hokkien. There's another version which I must have mushed up with this version. Its almost the same thing, but its about grandparents having a disagreement and some kind of punch and judy type scenario.

This is the explanation I found online,

"Irrigation of the field is always an important operation to the farmer. In the old days, when modern irrigation technology was not available, the farmer depended very much on raining. So when the sky was dark, knowing that it was going to rain, the farmer would bring out his 'changkol' (I think this is a Malay word for 锄头. There is no equivalent word in English because in the west, a spade is used.), the farmer would bring out his changkol to make sure that the water ways are properly cleared so that his field would be properly irrigated by the rain water.

Out of people's imagination, the wedding scene of of the Dragon King, the God who controlled raining, was vividly described in this children's rhyme."

Not my original words, its from this website's forums. http://www.chineselanguage.org/forum...php?f=6&t=1626

[channlluv]

Alexis, thank you so much. This is excellent. I'm looking up phrases like "indigenous weather folktales" but I'm not getting results like this. Is this from one of those areas where it never really gets cold? There's a rainy season and a dry season? Thank you!

Roxy

[crazycanuck]

Roxy, i'm unsure why Western Australia terms it's "seasons' seasons.... There's a coolish time of the year & there's a hot time of the year..not much else...

Verrrrrry good question!

[shootingstar]

How boring...to approach it from a technical, scientific perspective.

I can't imagine channelluv because of different First Nations (as Canadian term for "native Indian) group differences, there might be slightly different stories on what caused each of the 4 seasons to change.

This is not written in story, legend or myth style. It is from the Canadian Encyclopedia (well known in the library world) that summarizes some common beliefs which touches only a little bit on what causes changes for each of the 4 seasons.

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.c...=A1ARTA0005653

Looks like more on how Earth, Humankind was created, is the stronger focus.

Probably in ancient Chinese belief system, there is also a myth/legend but I don't know what it is without searching around for info. (There is for the creation of the Milky Way, certain constellations...)

I'm sure Hawai'i has a legend...though changes to 4 seasons would be quite different there....

Unfortunately my parents weren't into telling us fairytales, myths and legends.

Even for European stuff, I went to the library and read on my own as a kid.

[lph]

Let me know if you want to know why the sea is salt, why there are earthquakes, or why the fox has a white tip to his tail, though

[PamNY]

I'm also working on a book about animal artists -- animals that paint in zoo and sanctuary settings, and another about ghost hunting, and my next one is on the history of mermaids. If anyone has any cool mermaid mythology for your region...that's next. Seriously.
Roxy

Oh, do we have cool mermaid -- well, maybe not mythology, but something fun. I'm not sure if the annual Mermaid Parade in Coney Island is what you are looking for, but I can tell you that traveling on the subway with people dressed like this is a riot.

[channlluv]

Geemonetti, Pam, that is funny. This is an annual event, huh? I would love to come and take my own pictures...these may not be, um, age-appropriate. <g>

Shootingstar, thank you for that link. I have so much good reading to do! I think I'm going to go join the UC San Diego research library, too, but these links are very helpful as I'm putting together the book proposal itself. It's morphing into seasonal myths versus just how the seasons happened myths. If the book doesn't sell, I'll have lots of good material for articles for kids' magazines.

LPH, I think I want to come visit Norway and just spend a season traveling and listening to your local storytellers. I've never heard any of these.

Crazycanuck, it's like that here in San Diego, too. We have Rainy Season, which is about six days sprinkled across November and December, sometimes January, and Fire Season, which is the rest of the year. Although the last couple of days have been weird. Yesterday and into this morning, it was 60 and a light rain was falling. As I type this, at 2:45 in the afternoon, it's 100 degrees and sunny. Go figure.

Thanks again, everyone, for the stories.

Roxy

[shootingstar]

Consider to extend your research to include the Inuit in the Arctic.

You might have to dig around hard...I went to a bookstore in Iqualuit when I was in the Arctic. And very found little....except for academic stuff written by non-Inuit...etc.

Or think of children's cross-cultural book on myths, legends around the:

Northern lights.

(I guess for China you might have to hunt down Mongolian legends...if that's where they appear in that part of the world...)


Ah, one day in life I would like to see the aurora bourealis. Some people have told me of their sightings... including dearie who saw them here in Alberta.

[channlluv]

Shootingstar, I should think you'd be able to see the aurora often in British Columbia. Is there a season for those, too? I thought it was a result of solar flares burning their way across our atmosphere. Electromagnetic energy releasing and all that.

Roxy

[shootingstar]

I don't think it would be in the VAncouver area..too much light pollution/whatever.

It has to be somewhere without alot of trees in the way.... which is why I think north of where I am in Alberta there is a place..several hundred kms. away.

I thought there were the southern lights..but one has to do more reading around that.

[PamNY]

Here's a painting dog in Brooklyn:

http://www.tillamookcheddar.com/

I'm fairly certain I've met this dog and owner -- I think they are friends with someone I know.

[lph]

Light pollution is a problem, but trees aren't, unless you're right under one The northern lights are most visible in the north, but when they are visisble they flicker quite high up on the sky. Beautiful Awe-inspiring! (Oh, and don't wave to them).

[alexis_the_tiny]

Alexis, thank you so much. This is excellent. I'm looking up phrases like "indigenous weather folktales" but I'm not getting results like this. Is this from one of those areas where it never really gets cold? There's a rainy season and a dry season? Thank you!

Roxy

Roxy,

yep. Hereabouts, we get, well, hot and somewhat dry or hot and wet. The monsoon rains come twice a year. I'm not quite sure where it originated from but the line about the clearing of the waterways with a "changkol" sort of gives it away that it might be from around Malaysia or Singapore because that's a Malay word that's been mished into a Chinese dialect song. That sort of language mixing is quite typical around here.

I'm totally digging the stuff everyone's sharing on this thread, folklore and mythology are one of my favorite things.

Oh in case this is of any interest:
Dragon King of the East Sea - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_...f_the_East_Sea

Dragons in Chinese mythology, their roles were mainly to do with weather so no surprise the dragon king features in a song about rain - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_dragon

Sorry about the links, I can't seem to get the link thingy to work here.

[KnottedYet]

Ah, one day in life I would like to see the aurora bourealis. Some people have told me of their sightings... including dearie who saw them here in Alberta.

Did you see them last night? Looks like you get them nicely in Alberta.
http://www.girlsandbicycles.ca/2011/...rn-lights.html

[bmccasland]

Let me know if you want to know why the sea is salt, why there are earthquakes, or why the fox has a white tip to his tail, though

You going to add this to your Viking thread???

Pleeeaassseee.