The tanabata story of a female deity and a male deity across the Milky Way and Orimono Shrine

Once upon a time, a female deity, Orihime, lived on the west side of Amanogawa (the Milky Way). She had been very good at weaving since her childhood. The clothes she wove in the celestial world became fresh mist and clouds, and covered mountains and fields.
When Orihime became marrying age, her father brought, as her fiancé, the deity of a cowherd, Hikoboshi, from the east side of Amanogawa. They quickly fell in love and no longer worked as before.
So, people said, “It’s not normal weather. Recently, the mist and clouds don’t come out at all.”
Orihime’s father was very upset at this situation and decided to separate his daughter from Hikoboshi.
Still, Orihime’s father suggested one condition to the couple – If you work hard, I will allow you to meet up once a year on the night of July 7th”.
Since then, Orihime worked harder than before and looked forward to meeting Hikoboshi on July 7th. (From a leaflet of Katano City)
It is a very popular story in Japan and there are a lot of festivals of tanabata on July 7th. Furthermore, people, especially children, hang small pieces of paper with their wishes on trees of bamboo in their houses.

The original story in China

This story has its origin in China. During the ancient times many Chinese people who had techniques in textiles immigrated to Japan and dwelled in places between Osaka and Kyoto. They were useful for the court of Emperor and the original story must have been known among court members. The original is as follows.

Once upon a time, there was a poor cowherd. By chance he met a female deity of weaving, Orihime, and married her. Before long they had many children and lived happily. One day her mother in the celestial world commanded her subordinates to bring back her daughter. Orihime was kidnapped from her family and brought back to the celestial world. Her husband went to the celestial world to bring her back. Against his doing her mother made the Milky Way to protect him, so the couple couldn’t meet mutually. However, her father sympathized with the couple, and then he allowed them to meet only on one day every year, July 7th.
The two stories are nearly the same, but some details are different. Those are due to different view points, I think. The original is made from the view point of the male, so the activities of Orihime are passive. On the contrary, the story in Japan focuses on Orihime and the male cowherd is passive. And the story of Japan is just a love story. In addition, the original is structurally similar to the ancient story of a deity couple in “Kojiki”, the oldest Japanese history book, that a male deity, Izanagi, went to another world to bring back his wife, Izanami. Probably the original may not have been a love story.
Why this difference occurred?

I think the reason is in the court of the Emperor. In the Heian period many court ladies made many love stories. The original of this story was introduced into the court and was popular with court ladies. But yet the original might have been subtilely different from their feelings, then someone or somebodies changed the original to fit their lovely feelings.
Court ladies might have loved noble and beautiful but poor politicians who had good skills of Japanese poems. Thus they couldn’t love a poor male deity of cowherd.
The most popular playboy at that time was Narihira Ariwara-no. And a male protagonist who is similar to Narihira went around many places and fell in loves with many ladies. Its story is Ise-story, which writer is unknown. At many places where the male protagonist of the story visited , there are a lot of land name with Narihira or Ise.
Real Narihira Ariwara-no, who obeyed the then emperor for hunting, visited the land where the original of the story was transferred to, Katano. The emperor ordered him to write a poem, so then he wrote a poem as follows.
“I spent a full day hunting.
I want to ask Orihime(Tanaorihime) to rest me over night.
I came to the river field of the Milky Way.”

Hatamono Shrine

Hatamono Shrine is a quiet place in Katano. The main deity of the shrine is Orihime of the story, Ama-no-tanabata-hime, but I can catch nothing of the story in the shrine. After all, the image of the story which we know must have been made in the court. And this land with Hatamono Shrine is the land for hunting.