Best folk- and fairy tales for Chinese Valentine’s Day and lovers in long distance relationsships
On the 7th day of the 7th month of the Chinese lunar calendar Chinese celebrate a festival called the Double Seventh Festival, the Qixi Day or nowadays mostly refered to as the Chinese Valentine’s Day.
In order to celebrate Chinese Valentine’s Day and furthermore to console lovers from all around the world that are separated in a long distance relationship, let me share with you my favorite folk and fairy tales on the topic:
Orpheus and Eurydice
In this ancient Greek myth, Orpheus follows his lover Eurydice into the Hades, the Underworld, the realm of death, to get her back to live. By pleading for her live, Orpheus convinced the king and queen of Death to allow his Eurydice to return, but only under one condition. He must never turn around to see if she still follows him. Fatefully, he does. The promise was broken.
“Dawn and Dusk“ (Koit ja Hämarik)
This beautiful Estonian Folk Tale describes how the two lovers, the Sun and the Moon can only ever meet once a year, on the day of the Summer Solstice when days are long and nights are short.
You can find it here.
If you are interested in stories about the Summer Solstice and Midsummer, I gathered some here.
The Fox and the Raven (Chinese Fairy Book)
The story of The Fox and the Raven should remind us that flattering is not love and that words are not actions. Are you desperate for praise and love as the raven? Do you fall for falsehood? Be mindful of who you give your heart to.
The Cowsherd and the Waever Maid
also known as:
Immortals at the magpie bridge
This ancient Chinese poem goes by various translations, most of them refer to the two protagonists, Niulang, the cowsherd and Zhinü, the seventh daughter of a goddess and the Jade Emperor. When Zhinü escapes her boring palace, she meets Niulang. The young couple falls in love and gets married. Soon their marriage is discovered by the goddess (or in some interpretations by the Jade Emporer). The goddess throughs her hairpin in the air and creates a river of stars that the lovers can not cross. Only once a year, on the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar all the magpies in the world gather to form a bridge to let the lovers cross.
You can find this and a couple more romantic Chinese tales here. Or if you would rather watch it as a video, let me refer you to this short clip reciting the poem and explaining it’s meaning.
Help me gather more stories
The three picks presented here, are just the one’s I am aware of or could think about from the top of my head. If you know of any more that would fit, please, write a comment or send me a message, so I can add them here.
