Legend
Wulongkou Folklore
Wulongkou folk have been telling such a celestial myth with gusto for generations.
On the southeast bank of the Tianhe River, there is a beautiful star called Altair. There are two not-so-bright little stars on both sides of Altair called the Children's Star. A little far away from Altair, there is a relatively bright star called the Garnet Star. There is the brightest star on the northwest bank of the Milky Way called Vega, and there is a shuttle star on one side of it. Why are there these stars in the sky? This starts with the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl on the ground.
There was a cowherd who had been herding cattle with his brother and sister-in-law since he was a child. His sister-in-law always refused to let him have enough food and clothing. But the Cowherd allowed himself to starve, and found wild fruits to eat, and fed the cow until it was full.
One day after the Cowherd finished drinking the vegetable soup, as soon as he walked to the corner of the slope, the old scalper went home. The Cowherd didn't know why, so he had to obey. When I got home, I saw my sister-in-law making steamed buns to eat! My sister-in-law found it ugly and scolded me. Before the Cowherd could figure out what was going on, his sister-in-law threw the bowl at his face. The Cowherd pulled the old scalper and cried as he walked. The old scalper gently licked the Cowherd's arm and turned back to look at him.
One day, my sister-in-law walked into the cow house with a smiling face and a steaming bowl of egg drop noodles. She said: "Brother! My sister-in-law was sorry for you in the past, so don't be angry. Now that you are older, can I just treat you badly? Ha! Eat this bowl of rice quickly so that you can go and herd the cows." Cowherd He is an honest boy. After hearing what his sister-in-law said, he got rid of his past anger and reached out to pick it up. The old scalper broke free from the halter, dropped the noodle bowl, and spilled the noodles all over the floor. The sister-in-law was so angry that she cursed and took out a big stick next to the cow trough, trying to use it hard. The old scalper stared at her and jumped at her, so she put down the stick and ran away.
The Cowherd stopped the old scalper, and the old scalper said: "Cowherd! There is poison in these noodles. Look!" The Cowherd saw two hens that had pecked the noodles. He died after a few flutters. The Cowherd said: "Old scalper, it's so dangerous!" The old scalper said: "Your sister-in-law is trying to harm you. You can escape the first grade of junior high school, but you can't escape the fifteenth grade. When things get to this point, the woman will come and separate with you soon. She said yes, you said it right! Walk south for a day and you will have a place to settle down in the evening." After a while, my sister-in-law and Niu Lang came to live separately. The Cowherd followed the advice of the old scalper and listened to his sister-in-law. My sister-in-law said: "I didn't leave any inheritance when I died. I raised you so much. Normally, you can just clean up and go out. How can my sister-in-law bear it? You two brothers always have one big nipple! Here you go. Let’s go to the Cowherd!” In fact, she was afraid of the cow, so she gave it to the Cowherd. Without saying a word, the Cowherd led the old scalper and walked south.
They walked and walked until the sun set. They came to a small village with a mountain on its back. The Cowherd went to stay overnight. An old man in the village said that there were two new houses in the bamboo garden on the other side of the mountain. He lived in them by looking at the bamboo poles. They were often haunted and no one dared to live in them. The scalper nodded, and the cowherd thanked the old man and led the cow in. In the middle of the night, there was a starlight in the house, and a tall man kicked the door open. The old scalper rushed up and knocked the man down. As soon as the man fell down, there was a pile of silver in front of the door. That tall man with a big head is the mountain god who cares about money!
The Cowherd got the money, half of which bought this house, and half of which bought a few acres of land. He planted in spring and harvested in autumn, and lived a good life.
One day the old scalper said to the Cowherd: "You are not young anymore, why don't you marry a wife and live your life!" The Cowherd said: "Brother Niu is joking with me, we are farmers. You are clumsy, who is following us?" The old scalper said, "There are often a group of fairies bathing in the big pool after the sun sets in Wulongkou. Go and take a red skirt by the pool." The old scalper whispered to him again. After a while, they walked towards the back of the mountain.
When I came to the pond behind the mountain, I saw a group of young and beautiful girls playing in the water. There was a pile of dresses on the stone slab beside the pool. The Cowherd took the reddest and brightest dress, hid in the bushes, and coughed twice more. When the group of girls taking a bath heard that someone was coming, they hurriedly put on their clothes and tied their skirts, and left the earth lightly. Tengyun left. A very beautiful girl was left by the pool, and she shouted anxiously: "Where is my skirt? Where is my skirt?" The Cowherd came out of the woods and said, "Sister, the skirt is here!" The girl shouted The Weaver Girl is the maid of the Queen Mother, who weaves rusty clothes for God. The Weaver Girl flushed with shame and said, "Brother, how can I go home if I leave my skirt?" It is said that if a fairy leaves her skirt, she cannot control the wind and the clouds. The Cowherd ignored what he said and ran home with his skirt in his arms. The Weaver Girl had to follow behind.
In this way, with the help of the scalpers, the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl got married and became husband and wife. Men farm and women weave, they are diligent and frugal, and their life is very sweet. As for Brother Niu, he sheds tears all day long. The cowherd brought him mung bean soup, but he didn't even smell it. The cowherd was so anxious that he asked what was going on, and the old scalper said slowly: "I was originally a god of power in the sky. I moved several mountains for the sake of the world. I violated the rules of heaven and was demoted to a cow. I am also a cow." If the Weaver Girl gets married to you, God will have to kill me. After I die, you can hang my flesh on a tree and feed it to the magpies. Then you can peel off my skin and put it in a pair of boots. A handful of green grass can fly into the clouds and ride in the mist." After saying this, the old scalper breathed a sigh of relief and died. The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl cried bitterly, burned incense and paper, and made sacrifices. According to Brother Niu's instructions, they made cowhide boots and hung the meat on the tree to feed the magpies.
Three years later, Weaver Girl gave birth to two children, a boy and a girl.
One day, the Cowherd was working in the fields when he heard a rumble of thunder, and then dark clouds began to rise. The clouds are getting lower and lower, and even the roofs are dim. He felt something strange. When he returned home, he saw that the Queen Mother was dragging the Weaver Girl out. Weaver Girl clung to her body and refused to leave. The two children were holding on to Weaver Girl's dress and crying. The Cowherd banged his hoe on the ground and said, "What are you doing?" The Queen Mother said, "I am the Holy Mother in Heaven! I came back from the West and took her to plead guilty!" The Cowherd stomped his feet, "No! No! Put her down! Put her down. Her! Put her down!" The Queen Mother didn't listen and grabbed the Weaver Girl, and a gust of wind flew up to the sky.
The Cowherd remembered the old scalper's instructions before he died, and hurriedly found a pair of leather boots from the house and put them on. His body was as light as a swallow, and he stepped into the clouds in mid-air. When the two children saw that their mother was gone and their father was gone, they cried even harder. The Cowherd quickly turned back, put the two children into two baskets, picked them up on a pole, kicked off the ground, and chased the Weaver Girl.
Chasing and chasing, I saw the Queen Mother and the Weaver Girl through the gaps in the clouds. The Queen Mother pulled forward, while the Weaver Girl struggled backwards, still looking back. Cowherd gritted his teeth and took an even bigger step. When the Queen Mother saw that the Cowherd was catching up, she quickly took out a golden hairpin from her bun and drew a huge river, blocking the Cowherd. The Cowherd wanted to run across the river, but he couldn't get up the energy. It turned out that he was too panicked when he left and didn't bother to put a handful of grass into his boots. The Cowherd has no strength, so he can swim across the river. He can't swim. When he was in a hurry, he saw an ox shuttle put in the bamboo basket, and he threw it at the Weaver Girl with all his strength. The cow shuttle landed right next to the Weaver Girl. The Cowherd cried loudly: "Don't forget me when you see the shuttle head!" The Weaver Girl hurriedly took out the weaving pomegranates from her sleeves and threw them to the Cowherd. She also said, "I'll come to see you on the seventh day of every month!" The pomegranate fell far away from the Cowherd. The Cowherd only greeted the weavers and picked up the pomegranates, and mistook the seventh day of every month for the seventh day of July.
Wulongkou Han folklore: Every year on the seventh day of July, when the night is quiet, standing under the grape trellis or loofah trellis, you will still hear the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl whispering on the Magpie Bridge.
Today, Altair, Vega, Ox-head Star and Garnet Star in the sky were formed by the gifts that Cowherd exchanged while chasing after Weaver Girl. There are two small stars on one side of Altair, which are the children of Weaver Girl!
Folklore of Doumen Town, Xi'an
Art treasures of the Han Dynasty: Shi Po, Shi Ye. The origin of the Stone Statue of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl is recorded in historical records that Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty dug the Kunming Pool, the largest artificial river in Chinese history, in the capital Chang'an. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty compared it to the Milky Way in the sky. In order to cope with the celestial phenomena, statues of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl were specially sculpted on both sides of the river. With the humanoid Cowherd and Weaver Girl, the folk love story of Cowherd and Weaver Girl was gradually deduced. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was a saying: "Altair is far away, and the bright river is a Han woman. She holds her hands delicately, and she is playing with the machine. She is in a state of confusion all day long, and her tears are as cold as rain. The river is clear and shallow, how much longer can it be? The water is full of water, and the pulse is speechless. "The ancient poem describes their love. As time went by, more and more poems were written praising their love in the past dynasties, and the Chinese Valentine's Day gradually became China's "Valentine's Day".
The "Ode to Xijing" written by Zhang Heng, a great scientist of the Han Dynasty, records: There is the Kunming Lingmarsh and the Black Water Xuan Site. The surrounding area is made of golden embankments, and the trees are made of willow and qis. Yuzhang Zhenguan, uncovering Yan Zhongzhi. The morning glory stands on the left, and the Weaver Girl stands on the right. The sun and the moon then come in and out, like fusang and lemon. Among them are giant turtles, turtles, carps, turtles, tuna, turtles, sharks, short foreheads, broken noses on the big day, and other strange species. The historian Ban Gu, the author of "Book of Han": "Ode to the Western Capital" records: "Gathering in Henan Zhang Zhiyu is close to the Kunming pond. The morning ox on the left and the Weaver Girl on the right are like the boundless clouds and Han Dynasties. "There are some records in "Huainanzi", "Sanfu Huangtu" and "Sui Shiguang Ji". In the Tang and Song dynasties, it was incredible that the great Tang Minghuang and Yang Yuhuan chose to swear an oath to the moon on the night of the seventh day of July when they were "in love". Birds of love, I would like to be a Lianlizhi here!"
This statue is in Doumen Town, Chang'an District, Xi'an, where the people call them "Shi Po and Shi Ye Statues". There are dozens of them on the 7th day of the seventh lunar month every year. Thousands of tourists gather in temples to pray for happy love.
Yiyuan folk legend
“The Milky Way is in the sky and the Yi River is underground.” This is a popular Han folk saying spread in Yiyuan County, Shandong Province. The "Yinhe" mentioned here refers to the Milky Way in the sky, and "Yihe" is a river with a total length of 574 kilometers originating in Yiyuan County, Shandong Province. This statement originates from a poignant love story among Han people: the legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl. ——Inscription
China is a country with vast territory, abundant resources and a long history. It contains extremely rich national cultural heritage among the Han people. Among them, the four most famous Han folklores with Chinese characteristics, the most widespread and the greatest influence are the "Cowherd and the Weaver Girl", "Meng Jiangnu", "Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai" and "The Legend of the White Snake". The last three stories all have their own place of origin, but the hometown of the legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl has always been controversial. Moreover, it interprets heaven and earth on the same level, which is the most special one among the four legends.
The legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl begins with the records of "The Book of Songs·Dadong": "The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl" and "The Cowherd and the Cowherd". "Nineteen Ancient Poems: Far Far Away from the Altair" already calls the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl husband and wife. Ying Shao's "Customs": "The Weaver Girl will cross the river on the Chinese Valentine's Day, using magpies as a bridge. According to legend, the magpies will have their heads flat on the seven days for no reason, because the beams are used to cross the Weaver Girl.
”
According to relevant expert research, the geographical location described by “Dadong” of the Zhou Dynasty in the Book of Songs spans the Linzi and Qufu areas of Shandong Province today, and Yiyuan County, located in the upper reaches of the Yi River, is between Between Linzi and Qufu, it is geographically the core area of ??"Dadong". The Weaver Girl Cave on Daxian Mountain in Yanya Township, Yiyuan County today, and the Cowherd Temple across the river, are related to the legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl. The story is most consistent. Its initial construction date can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty in China. It is the only ancient architectural site in China based on the legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl. It has a monopoly among similar resources in the country. The story of "The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl" has spread all over the world and is a household name. Where it came from, almost no one knows. After extensive research by experts and scholars, it was discovered that the story of "The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl" originally originated in Yanya Township, Yiyuan County, Shandong Province.
First of all, there are real scenes on the ground. Yanya Township, Yiyuan County, Shandong Province, has the only rare landscape in China where legends correspond to actual scenes and ancient architectural ruins exist - the Zhinu Cave and Cowherd Temple built in the Tang Dynasty. The two are facing each other from east to west across the Yi River. The landscape pattern on both sides of the river echoes the "Altair-Milky Way-Vega" in the sky. They are strikingly similar, forming a unique landscape of the unity of heaven and man and the magic of heaven and earth. Niulang Temple was originally a two-story attic-style building. After many renovations, it began to take shape. It has three main halls, green bricks and green tiles, and painted brackets. The building is magnificent. In the main hall of the temple, there are statues of a Cowherd and his children, and a statue of a golden bull lying next to it. There are towering ancient cypresses in the courtyard, which is quiet and unique. Among them, "Yihe" is a perfect homophone to "Yinhe".
Secondly, there are people who live there. The village next to the Niulang Temple is called Niulang Guanzhuang. Most of the people in the village have the surname "Sun", which happens to be the same surname as Niulang (Sun Shouyi). This village has been around since the Ming Dynasty. The people in the village regard themselves as descendants of Niulang and have passed it down from generation to generation. The story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl continues to this day with customs such as raising silkworms, weaving cloth, and collecting Shuangqi water.
Third, it is documented in the literature. The earliest records in the Xiaoya Dadong Chapter of the Book of Songs in the Western Zhou Dynasty include: "Zhi (qi) the Weaver Girl" and "Huan (Huan) the Morning Bull". According to the investigation, the location of Dadong is east of Mount Tai, in the Linzi and Qufu areas. , and the core location of Dadong is Yiyuan.
Fourth, the stone tablets bear witness. There are many stone steles on Daxian Mountain in Yanya Township, Yiyuan County. However, because they were destroyed before, there are only a few that are intact. However, the contents engraved on all the stone steles are more or less related to the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl. Among them is a stone tablet, which has a beautiful and clear record of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl. This stone tablet was erected in the 20th year of Jiaqing. The two poems engraved on the stone tablet are called Climbing the Weaver Platform. The author is Wang Songting. The third and fourth poems are The sentence "It's like the stars are falling in the blue sky, and the cow girl is vaguely descending into the world." It very vividly describes the artistic conception of forming images in the sky and forming shapes with the earth. There is also a stone tablet "Zhinu Cave Chonglou Ji" which was erected in the seventh year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty (1579). The inscription records: "People from the Tang Dynasty in Zhiyun passed through the valley and heard the sound of the Zaza machine in the cave, so they named the Weaver Girl." This tells the origin of the Weaver Girl. It means that in the Tang Dynasty, someone passed by and heard the sound of the Zaza machine in the cave. He thought the Weaver Girl was weaving cloth, so he built the Weaver Girl Fairy Cave. The second sentence of the inscription - "The Cow Palace was built on the other side of the river, so what formed an image in the sky took shape on the earth...".
Furthermore, according to research, the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl scenic spot also has natural and geological wonders such as the Weaver Girl Spring, the Weaver Girl Terrace (Tiensuntai), the rare leaf-seed ginkgo, and the angle unconformity surface, all of which are related to the legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl. , with strong cultural color. Ginkgo biloba is unique to China and very rare in the world. The fruits of leaf-seed ginkgo grow on the leaves. The strange thing is that not all the fruits on this tree grow on the leaves. Only the fruits on this branch are leaf-seed ginkgo, which is a beautiful branch above the Wusheng Hall near the Weaver Girl Cave. These fruits It accounts for about 20% of the tree, and this branch happens to be in the direction of the Weaver Girl Cave. Maybe this is a testimony of the love of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl.
Daxian Mountain in the Cowherd and Weaver Girl Scenic Area is 532 meters above sea level, with a forest coverage rate of 96%. It has sharp cliffs, craggy boulders, and rows of pines and cypresses, and has an excellent ecological environment. The Yihe River under Daxian Mountain is like a belt, and the "Galaxy on the Ground" waterscape is 3 kilometers long, forming more than 500,000 square meters of water surface. Due to the high degree of harmony and unity between various natural resources and humanities, Yiyuan, Shandong Province is known by experts as "the hometown of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl and the origin of Chinese love culture."
Nanyang Folklore
Chinese Valentine's Day is the day when the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl meet on the Magpie Bridge. It is said that Niulang was an orphan from Niujiazhuang in Nanyang City, living with his brother and sister-in-law. His sister-in-law, Ma, was mean and often abused him. He was forced to separate the family and rely on an old cow to farm and support himself. This old cow was very spiritual. One day, the Weaver Girl and the fairies came down to play and bathe in the river. The old cow persuaded the Cowherd to get the Weaver Girl's clothes, and the Weaver Girl became the Cowherd's wife. After they got married, the man farmed and the woman weaved, and they gave birth to a son and a daughter. Their life was very happy. Unexpectedly, the Queen Mother found out about this and came down to earth to escort Zhinu back to heaven for trial. The old cow couldn't bear the separation of their wives, so he broke off the horns on his head and turned into a small boat, allowing the cowherd to pick up his children and catch them in the boat. Just as she was about to catch up with the Weaver Girl, the Queen Mother suddenly pulled out the golden hairpin on her head and drew a rolling Milky Way in the sky. The Cowherd could not cross the river, so he could only watch and cry with the Weaver Girl by the river. Their faithful love moved the magpies. Countless magpies flew over and used their bodies to build a colorful bridge across the Tianhe River, so that the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl could meet on the Tianhe River.
The Queen Mother had no choice but to allow the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl to meet once a year on the Magpie Bridge on July 7th.
Folklore in Xi'an
According to research, in the third year of Yuanshou, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, that is, in 120 BC, in order to conquer the southwest countries, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty went to Doumen Street, Chang'an District, Xi'an today. The Kunming Pool was excavated for navy training. Stone statues of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl were erected on the east and west sides of the pool. They faced each other across the pool. They were taken from the legend that the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl were separated by the Tianhe River. meaning. The wonderful legend about the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl has been widely circulated in China since then.
For a long time, the local people have called the two stone statues "Shi Ye" and "Shi Po". Over time, many people did not know that these two stone statues were the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, which symbolized traditional Chinese loyal love. In 1956, the "Shi Ye Shi Po Statue" was listed as the first batch of provincial-level key protected cultural relics. To the south of the "Liuguo Wharf" in the southern suburbs of Taicang, there is a Huanggu Pond next to Liujiagang, and there is a Huanggu Village by the river. According to ancient legend, this is the birthplace of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl. Before the Northern Song Dynasty, there was a Huanggu Temple in the village. In the temple, the statues of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl were enshrined. There is a beautiful and moving myth and legend here.
The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl are both gods in the sky. The Cowherd is called Heguxing, and later generations mistakenly call it Huang Guxing; the Weaver Girl is called Weaver Girl, and she is the granddaughter of the Queen Mother. The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl fell in love freely in heaven. The Jade Emperor and the Queen Mother thought that they were in the wrong family and in the wrong household. In the name of "falling in love and affecting their work," they kept the Weaver Girl under strict supervision and demoted the Cowherd to the mortal world. Before the Cowherd descended to earth, the Weaver Girl quietly told the Cowherd that if he missed her in the world, he could fill the lotus tank with water and look at the water in the tank to see the silhouette of the Weaver Girl. Niulang kept it in mind and was born into a farmer's home in Huanggu Village next to Huanggu Pond in the southern suburbs of Taicang.
The Cowherd in Huanggu Village lost his parents when he was young and lived in the house of his elder brother and sister-in-law. A cow, the Taurus star in the sky, flew to the Cowherd. The Cowherd took good care of the cow and often went to the fields to graze the cow. They were very close. His brother and sister-in-law have always bullied him, abused him, burned good things and eaten them secretly without letting the Cowherd know. Lao Niu was smart and knew that his brother and sister-in-law were stealing good food at home, so he asked the Cowherd to go home and eat. My sister-in-law was so angry that she forced Niu Lang to separate the family. The Cowherd said that I don’t want anything else but this cow, to plant a piece of land and live in a thatched house.
After the separation, the cowherd and the cow worked hard, took the cow to work in the fields, and depended on the cow for life. The Cowherd is smart and capable, and gradually grows into a strong and sensible young man. After finishing the farm work in the fields, he often rides on the back of the cow and plays the flute to relieve his boredom. When I missed the Weaver Girl, I stared at the Weaver Girl in the lotus vat in a daze. The sound of the flute he played was so beautiful that the Weaver Girl in the sky was fascinated by it. She kept eavesdropping on the Cowherd playing the flute in the colorful clouds for seven or forty-nine days, which aroused her admiration for the Cowherd. The old cow said: "Cowherd, Cowherd, you wave to her. If she is interested, she will meet you." The Cowherd looked up into the colorful clouds and saw a beautiful fairy who looked like a lotus vat. The Weaver Girl in the house waved to her. Seeing the Cowherd waving to her, the Weaver Girl pulled out a silver hairpin from her head and threw it down. With a "swipe" sound, the silver hairpin turned into a road to the sky, and the Cowherd rode on the Cowherd. On my back, I met Weaver Girl in the sky. Cowherd and Weaver Girl, you love me, I love you, so the old cow acts as a matchmaker. Weaver Girl descends to the earth and is born in Huanggu Village, and gets married to Cowherd.
Their men farmed and the women weaved. They gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, and lived a happy life. The Weaver Girl weaves very good cloth, and her business is good. She is also willing to teach the women in Huanggu Village how to weave cloth, and they have a close relationship with her neighbors. Before the old cow died, the old cow put its head on the river bank and said to the cowherd: "After I die, you can peel off my skin and put it away. It can be used when there is danger. If you wear it on your body, you can go to heaven!" The old cow died! That riverside is still called "Niutoujing".
Weaver Girl is the granddaughter of the Jade Emperor. The Jade Emperor discovered that the Weaver Girl was not weaving in the machine room, and sent the gods and generals to inquire. He found out that the Weaver Girl was born in Huanggu Village, married the Cowherd, and gave birth to twins. The Jade Emperor was furious and sent the gods and generals to escort the Weaver Girl away. The Cowherd was working in the fields when he suddenly noticed that the weather was bad. He hurried home and found that the Weaver Girl was missing. He looked up at the sky and saw that the Weaver Girl was escorted to heaven by the gods. He hurriedly put on the cowhide, picked up a load of children and flew up to the sky. , while chasing, she shouted, "Heaven will stop being rude and give me back my wife!" Seeing the Cowherd chasing after her, the Weaver Girl thought to herself that I am the granddaughter of the Jade Emperor, so she would not do anything to me. She tortured her and waved her hands to tell them not to follow, but the Cowherd refused to listen. The Weaver Girl became anxious, pulled out a golden hairpin from her head, and drew a line behind her, drawing a Milky Way. The river was rolling and the waves were rolling, and the Cowherd and the others were stopped. In the east of the river, it is impossible to cross the river.
After the Jade Emperor captured the Weaver Girl, he severely reprimanded her and imprisoned her in a machine room to weave cloth. The Cowherd could not meet the Weaver Girl, and the children cried for their mother. The Mother of the Earth (the wife of the Jade Emperor, who was in charge of all things on earth) saw that the Weaver Girl was pitiful and asked the Jade Emperor for mercy. The Jade Emperor agreed to meet the Weaver Girl and the Cowherd once every year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. On this day, the birds and magpies built a bridge, allowing the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl to take their children to heaven and meet the Weaver Girl on the magpie bridge.