Jining South Of The City Along The Canal, The Folklore Of,

In the south of the Jining city, there are five natural villages along the Grand Canal bank, which are Zhao village, Shifo village, Xindian village, Xinzha village and Zhongqian village. In these villages, a series of legendary figures have spread widely, with mysterious color. The leading figures are:Shang Hongguan, Song Qinjin, Liu Tietui.etc. Through the countryside inquisition, we find most important and overall different fabulous texts in Xindian village where the legendary persons live. The three legendary persons as represents of the civil mental state in that district as honest, who are hardworking and humorous. In the meantime, the fabulous contents also describe the traditional milieu and people's production where the Grand Canal and lakes have crossed.The legend has reflected the people's straight thinking mode under traditional natural economy. In regard to that region, legend is a carrier to spread culture from generation to generation, which could let posterity find out the ancestral movable trace. Also, it is an important way to establish self-confidence and proud between village union interior and exterior. To the miscellaneous surname villages, the folk tales play an important role to form cultural approval, spread traditional folkloristic concept and hold race personality comprehensively. It is also a significant intangible cultural manifestation of rural culture.This article analyses the civilian legend figures in 5 villages along the Grand Canal bank, which is based on legend.teller's interview and. villages' investigation, combining various texts of the original legend, history documents and predecessor's research discoveries, with several research angles such as natural humanities environment, legend's content, legend's Cultural connotations and village's present condition. The series of analysis about various detailed folk items in legend can reflect ordinary person's social life, cultural civilization and mental state in the period of Ming and Qing Dynasty. Meanwhile, village legend has its own research value in cultural history, it remains some information during village's development process in history. In spite of including the content of fictions and exaggerators in oral presentation, village legend is a kind of important datum to research the changes of village folk culture, human lifestyle of production and life, dialect word deviation and so on. Combining the village legend with specific geographic and human environment is helpful to reconstruct village's general situation in the historical period.