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The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl: the story, the stars and Qixi

The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl (牛郎織女, Niulang Zhinü) is a Chinese folktale about a mortal cowherd who marries a weaver from heaven. A goddess separates them with the Milky Way, and once a year, on the seventh night of the seventh lunar month, magpies form a bridge so the two can meet. That night is the Qixi festival.

Updated November 12, 2026

What is the story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl?

A celestial weaver marries a poor cowherd on earth, is taken back to heaven, and is allowed to see him only one night a year.

Versions differ in the details. This is the outline of a common telling, as retold by the anthropologist David K. Jordan.

  1. The weaver. The Weaving Maid (織女, Zhinü) serves in the heavenly palace of the Queen Mother of the West (西王母, Xi Wangmu) and spends her days at the loom.
  2. The cowherd. On earth, the Cowherd (牛郎, Niulang) is an orphan who lives with his older brother and his brother’s wife, who treat him like a servant.
  3. The stream. The Weaving Maid and her six sisters come down to bathe in a stream. The Cowherd picks up the clothes she left on the bank. Her sisters fly home, but she has to stay and ask for her clothes back.
  4. The marriage. She falls in love with him, stays in the mortal world, marries him, and they have two children.
  5. The river. The Queen Mother sends her soldiers to bring the Weaving Maid back to her loom. When the Cowherd follows, carrying the children, the Queen Mother draws a hairpin from her hair and turns it into a river across the sky: the Milky Way.
  6. The bridge. Moved by the family’s grief, the Queen Mother relents. Each year, on the seventh night of the seventh month, a flock of magpies forms a bridge over the river and the couple meet in the middle.

In some versions the Weaving Maid is a daughter or granddaughter of the Jade Emperor, and it is he who parts them after she neglects her weaving.

Which stars are the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl?

The Weaver Girl is Vega, in the constellation Lyra, and the Cowherd is Altair, in Aquila; the Milky Way runs between them.

Both are among the brightest stars of the summer sky in the Northern Hemisphere, so the story can be traced overhead on a clear night. In Chinese the Milky Way is the Heavenly River (天河, Tianhe) or Silver River (銀河, Yinhe), and old poems call it the River Han (河漢).

How old is the legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl?

The two stars appear in China’s oldest poetry collection, and by the Han dynasty they had become a pair of lovers.

  • The Classic of Poetry. The poem “Da Dong” (大東) in the Shijing mentions the Weaving Maid stars, which shift position all day yet weave no cloth, and the Draught Ox star (牽牛, Qianniu), which pulls no cart. The art historian Bo Songnian notes that there is no myth here yet, only stars with human names.
  • The Nineteen Old Poems. In this group of Han dynasty poems, the tenth begins “Far, far away, the Draught Ox star; bright, bright, the girl of the River Han” (迢迢牽牛星，皎皎河漢女). The weaver cries over her loom and cannot speak to him across the water, and the love story has arrived.
  • The magpie bridge. A line about magpies filling the river to make a bridge for the Weaving Maid survives as a quotation, attributed to the Huainanzi, in the Song dynasty almanac Suishi guangji.

Bo also points to stone statues of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl set on either side of Kunming Pool, the lake Emperor Wu of Han had dug at Chang’an. The two figures still survive.

What is the Qixi festival?

Qixi (七夕, “the Seventh Evening”) is the festival of the couple’s yearly meeting, held on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, which usually falls in August.

For most of its history it was a festival for girls and young women. They prayed to the Weaving Maid for skill at needlework, which gave the day another name, the Festival of Begging for Skill (乞巧節, Qiqiao jie). Jordan describes offerings of fruit left out overnight: if a spider spun a web over the fruit by morning, it was a good sign. Other customs included threading needles by moonlight. China listed Qixi as national intangible cultural heritage in 2006, and today it is often called Chinese Valentine’s Day.

Tanabata and Chilseok: the same lovers in Japan and Korea

The legend traveled with the festival, and Japan and Korea both keep their own versions of the seventh-night meeting.

In Japan the festival is Tanabata, when people write wishes on strips of paper and hang them on bamboo. In Korea it is Chilseok, and the lovers are Gyeonu the herdsman and Jiknyeo the weaver.

One of China’s Four Great Folktales

The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl is counted among China’s Four Great Folktales, together with Lady Meng Jiang, the Butterfly Lovers and the Legend of the White Snake.

Two of the four share a shape: a woman from beyond the human world marries a mortal man, and a higher power parts them. In the White Snake legend she is a snake spirit and the monk Fahai imprisons her under a pagoda. In this one she is a weaver of heaven and the river in the sky keeps them apart.

Questions about the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl

Who separated the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl?
In many versions it is the Queen Mother of the West, who draws a hairpin from her hair and turns it into the Milky Way. In others it is the Jade Emperor, the Weaver Girl's father or grandfather, angry that she has stopped weaving.
Why do magpies make a bridge for the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl?
In the legend the magpies come once a year, on the seventh night of the seventh lunar month, and form a bridge over the Milky Way so the couple can meet. Some tellings say all nature was moved by their grief; others say the Queen Mother called the magpies herself.
When is the Qixi festival?
Qixi falls on the seventh day of the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar, which usually lands in August. The date changes each year in the Western calendar.
Is Qixi Chinese Valentine's Day?
It is often called that today, because it celebrates a pair of lovers. Traditionally it was a festival at which girls and young women prayed to the Weaving Maid for skill at needlework, so it was also called the Festival of Begging for Skill.
Which stars are the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl?
The Weaver Girl is the star Vega, in Lyra, and the Cowherd is Altair, in Aquila. The Milky Way, which Chinese calls the Heavenly River or Silver River, runs between them.
What are the Four Great Folktales of China?
They are the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, the Legend of the White Snake, Lady Meng Jiang, and the Butterfly Lovers.

Read it as a story

Comicwell retells another of the Four Great Folktales, the White Snake, in the present day. In The Rainbound City, Su keeps an old apothecary in rain-soaked Seattle and keeps a secret: she is a white snake living as a woman. Evan Xu, who works in a Seattle emergency room, keeps finding his way to her counter. The first 20 comic chapters are free. The novel is What the Rain Cannot Hold, and the first 10 novel chapters are free.

More legends: the Legend of the White Snake, the Dragon King and Chinese ghost marriage. All guides: Chinese legends explained.

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