“Really, you need to stop pointing and saying ‘what’s that?’ For crying out loud, use your words.” Despite the harsh tone, the employee walked to the shiny bundle the teen was pointing at.
“At any rate, you do have good taste. This was woven by the Goddess Weaver herself.” The clerk grabbed the top of the bundle and lifted it up, revealing a marvelous silken robe that looked like it was made from the cosmos itself. With all shades of black, blue, purple, gray, and numerous other colors, it had small dots all over that seemed to twinkle. If one looked at it long enough, there was a sensation that the colors were slowly spinning and twirling around.
The teen gasped in amazement. “It’s gorgeous! Who on Earth could have made that?”
“No one on Earth, but rather in the Heavens.” The shopkeeper draped the fabric over an arm as they continued. “The Goddess Weaver made this robe for one of her sisters. Let’s just say this is one of the, ah, rarer items we have in the shop.” The store clerk gazed at the robe, as if they couldn’t believe it was in their arms. “It was quite difficult to get a hold of, but we managed it.”
The teen softly asked, “Who was the Goddess Weaver?”
The employee shook their head as if to clear their thoughts, then sighed. “She is from China. It’s not quite accurate to refer to any god in the past tense. They might still be around, just not as involved in human affairs. Although the Goddess Weaver never involved herself in the lives of mortals too much. Apart from one time, when she showed an uptight court official that a robe made on her loom was seamless since no needle or thread was involved. This gave rise to the saying of ‘a goddess’s robe is seamless’ as a way to express perfect workmanship.”
“Is that the robe she showed him?” The teen was tentatively stretching out a hand towards the robe, clearly wanting to touch it. After a pause, the clerk held out their arm so that the teen’s fingers brushed the front of the robe. There was a gasp as the teen felt how silky and flawless the robe was. The teen could also feel something else: it was as though the robe had more than silk woven into it, but there was no way to further express this feeling.
“It’s probably not,” was the answer the clerk gave. “She wove many things, not just robes. As far as I know, this was just something she made her sister. The only other thing I know about it is that she made it before she fell in love.”
“What does her love life have to do with anything?”
“It has to do with everything. One of the reasons the Goddess Weaver is so well known is because she fell in love, and her love almost destroyed the world.”
The clerk paused, then started the story.
“The Goddess Weaver had a very important job. When she wove, she wasn’t just weaving fabric. She was also helping to weave the heavens, and to hold them together. But her father worried at how much time she spent weaving. It was all she did; from the time she woke up from the time she went to bed, she sat by the Heavenly River and wove. Her father felt it wasn’t healthy. He thought that maybe, if she had a husband, she would relax a little. So her father announced that anyone wishing to propose to the Goddess Weaver would be favorably accepted by him.
“Now, it so happened that on the other side of the Heavenly River was a boy who herded oxen. Shortly after her father’s decree, the Goddess Weaver noticed him. He was intelligent and well-suited for the Goddess Weaver, and so they were quickly wed. It was hoped that the Goddess Weaver would enjoy a little more leisure time, rather than working constantly.
“But the Goddess Weaver was an ‘all-or-nothing’ type of person. She completely abandoned her duties to spend time with her new husband, who had also forsaken his own responsibilities. It didn’t take long for the Heavens to fall into chaos, since she was no longer weaving. Eventually her father decided it would be best to separate the two on opposite sides of the Heavenly River once more.
“This wasn’t a great solution though. Although both of them resumed their obligations, they were quite miserable about it. Eventually, her father came up with a solution. Once a year, on the seventh day of the seventh month, magpies would form a bridge for the Goddess Weaver to cross over to spend the day with the Cowherd. And so this was enough, although it really wasn’t.”
“Why did the birds have to make a bridge?” asked the teen, tearing their eyes away from the robe. “Why couldn’t they use wood or something?”
The shopkeeper eyed the teen. “Never heard the term ‘Heavenly River’ before have you?” The clerk continued before the teen could answer. “You know about the Heavenly River, just by a different name. You’d know it as the Milky Way.”
There was a moment’s pause as this information was processed. “That’s really stupid that her dad would demand she get married and then separate her from her husband,” the teen burst out, sounding angry.
“He meant well,” said the clerk quietly. “He wanted her to be happy, but he didn’t realize that her happiness might cost the world everything. In the end, he did the best he could.”
There was silence in the shop before the teen spoke, tearing their eyes away from the robe. “I don’t think this will work. My grandma wouldn’t like it. I think it would confuse her too much. Do you have anything else that’s maybe not so, much?”
Author’s note: I had some difficulty with this story, but I think I managed to make it work. For my main source, I used The Weaver Maiden and the Herdsman, from Orpheus: Myths of the World, collected by Padraic Colum. As with the other stories I’ve written about, there are several versions floating around. In Colum’s story, the Goddess Weaver’s father is the one who discovers the Cowherd and introduces the two, while other stories just say that the Goddess Weaver observed the Cowherd from across the Heavenly River and met him on her own. I decided to combine the two by having her father issue the decree, but the Goddess Weaver observe the Cowherd on her own shortly after. To me, this story is a little more tragic than the previous ones. Arachne brought her doom on herself with her behavior, and the Grimm story has a fairly happy ending. But in this story, two people fall in love, and are forced apart by outside forces. Thus, I wrote this story to have a bit more of a morose tone to it. I also chose this story both because it has fabric mentioned in it (of course!), and because I feel it’s a good lead into the epilogue I have planned.