Cowherd

Niulang was an orphan raised by cruel elder siblings, finding solace only in the companionship of an aged ox. This ox possessed supernatural wisdom and guided Niulang to marry Zhinü (the Weaver Girl), a celestial maiden who had descended to bathe in a river. Together they lived a harmonious life of farming and weaving, raising two children. When the Queen Mother of the West drew the Milky Way with her golden hairpin to separate the couple forever, Niulang seized his children and rushed after her with a carrying pole—but reached only the riverbank, left gazing helplessly across the celestial divide. Moved by his sincerity and devotion, the Jade Emperor granted them one annual reunion on the 7th day of the 7th lunar month, when magpies form a bridge across the Milky Way. This tale, transmitted for over two millennia, expresses the people’s ideal of marital fidelity and the pastoral harmony of ‘men ploughing, women weaving’—and thus Niulang is venerated as a deity safeguarding both marriage and agriculture.