Most Chinese remember being told this romantic tragedy when they were children on Qixi, or the Seventh Night Festival, which falls on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, which is usually in early August. This year it falls on Sunday, August 19.

If it rains heavily on that night, some elderly Chinese will say it is because Zhinu, or the Weaving Maid, is crying on the day she met her husband Niulang, or the Cowherd, on the Milky Way.

According to the Chinese lore, a cowherd lived with his elder brother and sister-in-law who disliked and abused him, that he was forced to leave home with only an old cow for company. The cow, however, was a former god who had violated imperial rules and was sent to earth in bovine form. One day the cow led the cowherd to a lake where fairies took a bath on earth. Among them was a weaving maid, the most beautiful fairy and a skilled seamstress. The two fell in love at first sight. They ignored Heaven’s strict rules and were soon secretly married. They had a son and a daughter and their happy life was held up as an example for hundreds of years in China. Yet in the eyes of the Jade Emperor, the Supreme Deity in Taoism, marriage between a mortal and fairy was strictly forbidden. He sent the empress to fetch the weaving maid. The cowherd grew desperate when he discovered the weaving maid had been taken back to heaven. Driven by the cowherd’s misery, the cow told him to turn its hide into a pair of shoes after it died. The magic shoes whisked the cowherd, who carried his two children in baskets strung from a shoulder pole, off on a chase after the empress. The pursuit enraged the empress, who took her hairpin and slashed it across the sky creating the Milky Way which separated husband from wife. The cowherd was stopped by the surging river. But all was not lost as magpies, moved by their love and devotion, agreed to let them meet one day (on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month) each year. All the magpies in the world, according to lore, gather on that day to form a bridge spanning the Milky Way so the lovers can reunite. Even the Jade Emperor was touched, and allowed them to meet once a year on the seventh night of the seventh month.

In bygone days, Qixi was not only a special day for lovers, but also for girls. It is also known as the “Begging for Skills Festival” or “Daughters’ Festival.”

In the past, girls would conduct a ceremony to beg Zhinu for wisdom, dexterity and a satisfying marriage in the future.

This was not the case all over China, as the festival varied from region to region.

In some parts of Shandong Province, young women offered fruit and pastries to pray for a bright mind. If spiders were seen to weave webs on sacrificial objects, it was believed the Waving Girl was offering positive feedback.

In other regions, seven close friends would gather to make dumplings. They put into three separate dumplings a needle, a copper coin and a red date, which represented perfect needlework skills, good fortune and an early marriage.

Girls also held weaving and needlework competitions to see who had the best hands and the brightest mind, both prerequisites for making a good wife and mother in ancient China.

Young women in southern China used to weave small handicrafts with colored paper, grass and thread.

Afterwards, they competed to pass a thread through the eyes of seven needles in a single breath.