The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl
Chinese folklore is influenced by the country’s beliefs – Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism. Like Japanese folklore, experts believe Chinese folk tales were influenced by West Asia and India. The animals in Chinese folk tales often have human characteristics, and can speak, reason, and perform tasks in the same manner as humans. The Cowherd and Weaving Girl is the story of the Chinese Valentine’s Day, also known as Qixi Festival, which falls on the seventh day of the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar.
The earliest-known reference to this famous story dates back to over 2,600 years ago and was told in a poem from the Classic of Poetry. The tale of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl has been celebrated during the Qixi Festival in China since the Han dynasty, and has also been celebrated in the Tanabata Festival in Japan, and in the Chilseok Festival in Korea.
The Cowherd, or Niulang, was a young man with only a cow as his companion, and the Weaver Girl, or Zhinu, was a fairy who lived in Heaven and weaved the rainbows and clouds.
One day, the Weaver Girl and her other sisters got permission from their Queen Mother to descend to the Earth on a vacation. On Earth, they all took baths in the lotus garden. The Cowherd passed by and picked up a set of clothes outside the garden, belonging to the Weaver Girl.they eventually met and fell in love, and the Cowherd asked the Weaver
Girl to be his wife on Earth. Niulang and Zhinu lived a happy life together with two kids for several years.
However, after the Queen Mother found out that her granddaughter fell in love with a mortal, she was so furious that she brought the Weaver Girl back to Heaven and prohibited the lovers from meeting for good. Seeing the Cowherd so upset for his dear wife, the cow told his master to make a pair of shoes with his cowhide after it died. The cowhide shoes made from the cow’s skin took the Cowherd to fly to the Heaven to find his wife. However, when the Queen Mother discovered this, she separated the two lovers again with a Silver River, today known as the Milky Way.
The magpies in Heaven were so moved by their love that they formed a bridge called “magpie bridge”, or quèqiáo, allowing the two lovers to meet on the bridge on the Silver River. Eventually, the Queen Mother obliged, and permitted them to meet once a year on the bridge on the seventh day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar. It is said that they still meet on that bridge year after year.
The story embodies the transformation of the love of gods among stars into the love story between gods and men, and that the powerful emotion can overcome any obstacle – even for just one day.