them.

* * * * *

To understand the romance of this old festival, you must know the
legend of those astral divinities to whom offerings used to be made,
even by, the Imperial Household, on the seventh day of the seventh
month. The legend is Chinese. This is the Japanese popular version of
it:--

The great god of the firmament had a lovely daughter, Tanabata-tsumé,
who passed her days in weaving garments for her august parent. She
rejoiced in her work, and thought that there was no greater pleasure
than the pleasure of weaving. But one day, as she sat before her loom
at the door of her heavenly dwelling, she saw a handsome peasant lad
pass by, leading an ox, and she fell in love with him. Her august
father, divining her secret wish, gave her the youth for a husband.
But the wedded lovers became too fond of each other, and neglected
their duty to the god of the firmament; the sound of the shuttle was
no longer heard, and the ox wandered, unheeded, over the plains of
heaven. Therefore the great god was displeased, and he separated the
pair. They were sentenced to live thereafter apart, with the Celestial
River between them; but it was permitted them to see each other once
a year, on the seventh night of the seventh moon. On that
night--providing the skies be clear--the birds of heaven make, with
their bodies and wings, a bridge over the stream; and by means of that
bridge the lovers can meet. But if there be rain, the River of Heaven
rises, and becomes so wide that the bridge cannot be formed. So the
husband and wife cannot always meet, even on the seventh night of
the seventh month; it may happen, by reason of bad weather, that they