Chih-nii, the Heavenly Spinner

In this Chinese myth, Chih-nii, the daughter of a major deity, comes down to earth to bathe in a river. A simple cowherd, not knowing her identity, steals her robe and hides it, and -when the goddess comes to fetch it- convinces her to marry him. Unable to return to the heavens without her robe, Chihh-nii consents to the proposal. Years later, Chih-nii cajoles her husband into giving the robe back to her. She returns to the kingdom in the sky. Through the good offices of a genie-ox, the cowherd rises into the sky and is reunited with his wife in the eastern sky. Her father appints the cowherd to the guardianship of a star in the wet. Each year the couple is reunited for a brief time by traveling a bridge over the Milky Way.