Tens of thousands of couples chose sacred seven as their wedding date. Going back a decade, wedding website The Knot usually had around 12,000 couples registered and preparing to unite on any given Saturday in July, but leading up to 7/7/07, there was triple the amount: 38,000, even more than the millennium. (Time.com)

Seven is the number of completion, perfection. “We have seven days in a week, seven notes on a musical scale and Seven Wonders of the World,” says Carley Roney, editor in chief of The Knot. (Time.com)

But seven’s popularity doesn’t end there –  in China it is also considered a number of love. 

A legend, going back some 2,600 years, tells the story of Niu Lang, an honest boy who was forced to live with his brother and sister-in-law after the death of his parents. He was abused and eventually driven away.  Alone, with magpies gracing trees and sky, Niu Lang looked for a place to live. As Cowherd is the meaning of his name – he turned to farming and caring for his single bull. In his loneliness his bull spoke to him saying, “One day I will die. If trouble comes, peel off my hide and on it you will fly.” 

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He forgot all thoughts of trouble when a goddess named Zhi Nu, or Weaver Girl, entered his life. Bored of heaven, this seventh daughter of Emperor Jade, who ruled all of heaven and earth, descended. Looking for adventure, she found love. Cowherd and Weaver Girl married. Weaver Girl, with her heavenly loom, wove cloth in contentment. Cowherd, with his lone bull, ploughed his field in contentment. They loved each other and their love conceived and gave birth to one beautiful child, then another.  

When the queen of heaven discovered that her daughter had married a human, she ordered Weaver Girl be brought back. 

Cowherd, bound to earth, longed for his wife. And now his bull was dying. Filled with grief he bid good-bye to his faithful friend, then carried their children to heaven on its hide, in search of his wife. But the queen of heaven, in her anger, drew a line in the sky to separate the two lovers. This line forms the Milky Way. The constellation we know as Vega, in Chinese is Weaver Girl – it lies on one side separated from Cowherd (Altair), on the other. 

Zhi Nu must forever sit on one side of the Milky Way, weaving clouds on her loom, while Niu Lang watches from afar, caring for their two children. 

Their misfortune didn’t go unnoticed – all the magpies in the world took pity on Cowherd and Weaver Girl. They flew up to heaven and together built a bridge so strong the two lovers walked upon it and in the middle, met. 

Seeing their love, the empress declared that once a year they could reunite. So on the seventh night of the seventh moon, the two lovers meet on the bridge of magpies. 

This year on 7/7 of the Chinese calendar (8/28 of ours), hardly a bird will grace the sky and when it rains, falling are the tears of separated lovers. 

Chinese grandparents, with children at their knee, will bring to life this legend over two millennia old, and couples will celebrate love. So wish a Chinese friend Happy Valentine’s Day and tell them you know of the bridge of magpies that unites severed love. 

(Legend of Cowherd and The Weaver Girl retold by Charity Lee Jennings)