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THE WEAVER AND THE COWHERD

One day the King of the Gods, Phra In, decided that the time had come for his niece - a talented weaver and spinster - to marry, and with regal consideration, consulted her as to who her future husband should be.

Having won the King of the Gods’ permission, the young weaver looked high and low through the broad realms of heaven for a suitable mate, but without success. Turning to the earth, though, during her peregrinations she heard the sound of a flute so enchantingly employed that she looked for the player. And who should that be but a lowly cowherd on a lonely lea, with only his cattle for audience.

So entranced was the heavenly maiden, so enraptured not only by the cowherd’s playing but also his handsome presence, that she decided immediately that this was to be her life’s companion.

So strong was the love of the two young people each for the other, that Phra In gave permission for what was after all an irregular marriage - denizens respectively of heaven and earth as the youngsters were. The marriage ceremonies conducted, made husband and wife, the lovers they took up their blissful union on earth, the cowherd returning to his former employment, his mate making her cares the keeping of his house, the pastures and her husband himself - her spindle and weaving frame neglected in a corner of their abode.

But where were the magnificent products of her talent that had so pleased heaven’s deities? The King of the Gods was consulted, petitioned by his celestial subjects, politely pressed to bring the weaver back to the arts she knew so well. And Phra In inscribed an edict, commanding the weaver to meet her husband only once in seven days, in the remaining time engaging herself once more in spinning and weaving - and a crow was assigned to deliver the order.

Misfortune struck. Not far from the cowherd’s homestead a vulture swooped, and in eluding its attacker, the crow dropped and lost the edict, and was obliged to rewrite what it could from memory. But what was it Phra In had ordered? That the weaver-wife should return to her husband once a…Was it a week, a month? Remembering that ‘seven’ had been the number mentioned, the muddle-headed crow hastily scribbled that it should be on the seventh day of the seventh month: in other words, once a year.

The edict, once delivered, false as it was, could not be rescinded, and the lovers, with lamentation, parted. Pitying them, Phra In turned them into stars and set them in the sky, in their passion for each other shining far apart - and meeting each year only on the seventh day of the seventh month.

The crow, cursed as he was, was banished from the heavens, and on the same day as the lovers meet, is condemned to lose all his feathers and sit shivering in his untidy nest.