Heavenly Schmeavenly

       Being married to a heavenly maiden sounds amazing, however in three stories about an earthly man marrying heavenly maiden it seems as though that that kind of heterogeneous union only brings pain, heartache and suffering to those who participate.

In “The Heavenly Maiden and the Woodcutter” a lonely woodcutter tricks a heavenly maiden into marrying him and bearing his children.  At the end of the story the maiden who longed for home took the children and ran off back to heaven.  From the union between the earthly being and the heavenly being only pain and suffering resulted.  This relationship started under false pretenses and ultimately ends with the extreme pain and suffering of the woodcutter, which then manifests itself in the form of a crowing rooster.

In “The Weaving Maid and the Cowherd” though the results of the heterogeneous are different the theme of pain and suffering remains the same.  In this story the maiden is taken against her will from her father and the cowherd is left to raise the children on his own.  The story is still full of pain and suffering, but the maid and the cowherd become stars.  The two live an eternity on opposite sides of the Milky Way.

In “The Woman Who Came From Heaven” the themes once again remain the same.  The earthly man and the heavenly woman experience the pain and suffering of love.  They both become separated by the span of a galaxy and become stars.

Every heterogeneous relationship in the three stories all end painfully.  Pain is a consistent theme through all three of the relationships.  Earthly men can’t marry heavenly women without the lasting effects of pain gripping their hearts.