The Star Lovers

The God of the Firmament had a beautiful daughter named Tanabata, the Weaving Lady, who spent her days at the loom weaving for her honored father. One day, as she sat weaving, she happened to catch sight of a handsome young man leading an ox. His name was Hikoboshi, and she fell in love with him at once.

Her father could read her secret thoughts, and he quickly agreed that the two should marry. But the young couple loved each other far too much for their own good. Tanabata let her weaving go, and Hikoboshi let his ox roam wherever it liked across the High Plain of Heaven.

The God of the Firmament grew very angry. He ordered that the two lovers, so wrapped up in each other, must live apart from then on, with the Celestial River flowing between them.

Only one night in the year can they meet: the seventh night of the seventh month. If the weather is good, a great flock of birds gathers and makes a bridge across the river, and the lovers cross it to be together. Even that short visit is never certain. If it rains, the Celestial River swells too wide for even a vast bridge of magpies to reach across, and the two must wait another long, weary year for their next chance.

That is why the Festival of Tanabata falls on the seventh day of the seventh month. People used to set freshly cut bamboo on their roofs or plant it in the ground beside their houses and hang it with strips of colored paper, each bearing a poem in praise of Tanabata and her husband Hikoboshi. One such poem begs the storks of the river shallows not to wake Tanabata with their cries as she sleeps, long sleeves rolled up, until the red of dawn.

On the festival day, little children sing “Tenki ni nari,” “Oh, weather, be clear!” Love may laugh at locked doors, but a flooded river in the sky is another matter. When the night is fine and the Star Lovers meet after their weary year apart, the lovers’ stars are said to shine in five colors, blue, green, red, yellow and white, and so the festival poems are written on paper of those five colors.

About this story

This telling follows “The Star Lovers,” the opening section of Chapter VIII in F. Hadland Davis’s Myths & Legends of Japan (1912). Davis calls Tanabata “one of the most romantic of the old Japanese festivals” and tells the legend to explain the customs of the day.

He describes the bamboo branches hung with poem-strips, the children’s song for clear weather and the bridge of magpies that spans the Celestial River. Davis confuses star and constellation names here. The lovers are associated with Vega in Lyra and Altair in Aquila, as explained by NASA’s Night Sky Network. The five-colour account belongs to the legend, not a claim that the stars change colour for the festival. The same chapter goes on to the tale of the Robe of Feathers.

Read the original: Myths & Legends of Japan (Project Gutenberg)

Best for all ages — a short star legend behind a summer festival of poems and colored paper.

A reunion beyond anyone’s control

The lovers neglect their work, but the long separation raises a further question: does the punishment fit the mistake? Even after permission to meet is granted, weather can prevent it. The children’s wish for a clear sky gives the community a role in expressing sympathy, although wishing cannot command the river.

Write from the riverbank

Write a short festival poem from one lover’s viewpoint. Include one detail of the possible crossing and one fear about the weather. Explain whether your poem asks for better behaviour, mercy or simply a chance to meet.

Questions to ask

• Why were Tanabata and Hikoboshi separated?
• How do the lovers cross the Celestial River, and what can stop them?
• Why do the children sing for clear weather?

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• The Story of Urashima Taro, the Fisher Lad — love in a magical realm, and a long separation