He followed her through the green fields and shady groves, but never dared approach her or tell her of his love.
At last, however, the time came. He discovered her bathing in a limpid stream, the banks of which were carpeted with flowers, while myriad boughs of blossoming peach and cherry trees hid her from all the world but him.
He secretly crept near and stole away and hid her garments made of silken gauze and finely woven linen, making it alike impossible for her to resist his suit or to return to her celestial home.
She yielded to the Cow-herd and soon became his wife, and as the years passed by a boy and girl were born to them, little star children, twins, such as are seen near by the Spinning Girl in her heavenly home to-day.
One day she went to her husband, and, bowing low, requested that he return the clothes he had hid away, and he, thinking the presence of the children a sufficient guaranty for her remaining in his home, told her he had put them in an old, dry well hard by the place where she had been bathing.
No sooner had she secured them than the aspect of their home was changed. The Cow-herd's wife once more became the Spinning Girl and hied her to her heavenly abode.
It so happened that her husband had a piece of cow-skin which gave him power over earth and air. Snatching up this, with his ox-goad, he followed in the footsteps of his fleeing wife.
Arriving at their heavenly home the happy couple sought the joys of married life. The Spinning Girl gave up her loom, and the Cow-herd his cattle, until their negligence annoyed the King of Heaven, and he repented having let her leave her loom. He called upon the Western Royal Mother for advice. After consultation they decided that the two should be separated. The Queen, with a single stroke of her great silver hairpin, drew a line across the heavens, and from that time the Heavenly River has flowed between them, and they are destined to dwell forever on the two sides of the Milky Way.
What had seemed to the youthful pair the promise of perpetual joy, became a condition of unending grief. They were on the two sides of a bridgeless river, in plain sight of each other, but forever debarred from hearing the voice or pressing the land of the one beloved, doomed to perpetual toil unlit by any ray of joy or hope.
Their evident affection and unhappy condition moved the heart of His Majesty, and caused him to allow them to visit each other once with each revolving year,—on the seventh day of the seventh moon. But permission was not enough, for as they looked upon the foaming waters of the turbulent stream, they could but weep for their wretched condition, for no bridge united its two banks, nor was it allowed that any structure be built which would mar the contour of the shining dome.