世界节日谈（10-12）.doc

October 1
The Godless Month
Kami-nazuki
无神月
According to Shinto belief, October is the month during which the gods hold their annual convention. Come October 1, all of the eight million Kami take leave of their shrines all over the islands and converge on the great temple of Izumo in western Honshu. There they relax, compare notes, and make crucial decisions about humankind. The second oldest sanctuary in Japan, Izumo is also the largest. On its grounds are juku-sha, long dormitories in which the visiting gods reside.
At the end of the month, all over Japan , people make special visits to their neighborhood Shinto shrines to ea the resident gods back home. But until then, it is understood that all Japanese shrines are empty except Izumo. The poet Basho captured the desolation of an October shrine when he wrote:
The god is absent;
.The dead leaves are piling up,
and all is deserted

2 annual convention 年会 3 kami (日本神道教的)神 3 take leave of 从……离开 4 converge 集中 4 lzumo 出云大社(在日本岛根县) pare notes 交换意见 7 juku-sha 塾社 11 it is understood that 不言而喻 12 Basho芭蕉,即松尾芭蕉(1644~1694), 日本俳句诗人12 desilation 凄凉 16 deserted 荒废的
October 2
Old Man’s Day
老人节
One day during the reign of the Virgin Queen, the people of Braughing, Hertfordshire, solemnly gathered for the funeral of Matthew Wall, a local farmer. Pallbearers collected the casket, with Wall inside it , at the farmer’s home on Fleece Lane. But en route to the churchyard, the pallbearers slipped on some fallen leaves-remember, it was autumn –and they lost their grip on the coffin. To everyone’s horror, the casket crashed to the street and broke open. Imagine the villagers’ surprise when the “corpse” dazedly stood up: Matthew Wall had never been dead at all, atose, and the fall had revived him. He lived on to a ripe old age.
In his will, Wall provided for an annual charity. Every October 2 , villagers-earch of whom receive a few pence from Wall’s bequest-retrace the pallbearers’ route from Fleece Lane to t