Badalingchangcheng Legend
01 · Historical Records
The earliest legends about Badaling derive from ancient myth and arose before the creation of writing, reflecting the relation between man and nature in remote antiquity. By the Ming, along the Badaling section of the Great Wall eight great stockades were built, each garrisoned with troops, and every village, stockade, wall and pass and even the stones and springs had their legends, handed down from generation to generation; such tales as The Stone Gazing at the Capital, The Shadow of the Sixth Lord, The Golden Ox Cave, The Stone Buddha Temple, Mu Guiying's Reviewing Stand and The Lute-Playing Gorge are still much on people's lips. The content of the Badaling legends covers the hardship of building the wall, the loyalty and bravery of the frontier soldiers, anecdotes of imperial tours and the origin of the hills, waters and scenery along the line, combining the colour of both myth and historical hearsay. These legends have long circulated in Yanqing and the northern Beijing area and been continually enriched through the oral transmission of their tellers.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Badaling Great Wall in Yanqing county, Beijing, has a long history and has been a military strongpoint and vital communication line since ancient times. Even the origin of the name Badaling has several versions in folk legend. Commanding the defile of Juyong pass, Badaling's Guanggou old road was the throat leading from the capital to the north of the passes, and through the ages troops were garrisoned and merchants came and went, providing rich soil for the birth of legends; the origin of the name Badaling has in folk tradition such versions as the ridge dividing eight reaches and the road reaching in eight directions. The telling of the Badaling legends mostly relies on particular rocks, springs, caves and pass place names, plain and vivid in narration and serving the double function of legend and explanation of scenery.
The Stone Gazing at the Capital
One of the much-loved pieces of the Badaling Great Wall legends.
The Shadow of the Sixth Lord
One of the much-loved pieces of the Badaling Great Wall legends.
Mu Guiying's Reviewing Stand
One of the much-loved pieces of the Badaling Great Wall legends.
The Lute-Playing Gorge
One of the much-loved pieces of the Badaling Great Wall legends.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Badaling Great Wall legends are rooted in the people, strongly regional, rich in content and varied in kind, spanning a great range of time; they are a plain and easily understood original-ecological literary form with a strong mythological colour. Their emergence is bound up both with the special local environment and historical conditions and inseparably with production and life, the seasons and festivals and local custom. The emergence of the Badaling legends is inseparable from the special local geographical environment, the military defence system and the historical conditions of garrison farming and migration.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
These beautiful and moving legends have been told and enriched by countless people in the course of transmission and are still transmitted today, playing a positive role in promoting national culture and studying folk literature and art. After entering the twenty-first century this precious folk literature has come under the impact of modern culture; the tellers and researchers are daily fewer and it faces the predicament of being lost and urgently needs protection. Rooted in the people, strongly regional and plain, the legends have reference value for studying the history, migration, military affairs and folklore along the Great Wall. The Badaling legends are closely bound up with the history and geography of Juyong pass and the Guanggou old road and are an important part of the folk literature of the Great Wall culture belt.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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