Once upon a time, the Emperor of Heaven wanted to invite all the animals in his kingdom to his birthday party.
He wanted to have a little fun so he called for a race in the road to heaven among all the animals on the day of the celebration. The ultimate prize was to be granted a year in the Chinese calendar - named after each animal. All of the animals contended in order to get one of the twelve permanent spots in the Chinese zodiac.
The cat and rat whom used to be close friends, decided to attend the Emperor's birthday party together. The cat, who had a bit of a problem getting up in the morning, asked the rat to give him a morning call on the day of the race. The rat agreed but broke his promise and left on his own to the road of heaven.
Once the rat got to the river, he knew it would take ages for him to swim across and he might not make it. The clever him decided the fastest way to cross the river was to cajole the naive and good-natured ox to carry him across.
He came first and that is why the year of the rat is the first year in the Chinese zodiac and the year of the ox is the second. Subsequently followed by the tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig.
That is why there is no place for the cat all these years and understandably, how rats came to get into the nerves of cats ever since!
No comments:
Post a Comment