엽서꽃 : It was said that the Goddess of Heaven, out of pity, decided to let them unite once on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month as she was touched by their love for each other.
In some versions it is the Emperor of Heaven, the cowherd's father, or the cowherd's mother who has the role of separating the lovers for them to focus on their work instead of romance.
The star Deneb is a fairy who acts as a chaperone when the lovers meet on the magpie bridge. Rather than once a year, there is a version where the lovers were permitted to reunite once a month.
There is a belief that sometime during the night of Qixi, the two stars Altair and Vega will actually unite on the same side of the Milky Way.
Similar stories are told throughout Asia: in Japan, Korea, Thailand, Laos and Indonesia. In South-east Asia the stories were known as Sudhana Jataka, believed to be one of the stories of the past lives of the Buddha, or the jataka
[Wikipedia]
