Folktale Week Illustrations: Rain and the Magpie Bridge

The Magpie Bridge, 11" x 14" linocut by Ele Willoughby

I look forward to it every year! It's time for Folktale Week. Hosts post their 7 prompts for artists and/or writers to create illustrations or tell stories on these themes inspired by folktales, folklore, fables, myth and fairytales! There’s always a lot of magic submissions and it’s open to all. Most of the action is on Instagram (see @folktaleweek for more information) but you can find artists and writers sharing on other socials too. I am going to post my new illustrations here. And now Day 3: Rain.

My hand-carved, hand-printed lino block print of the well-known, ancient Chinese folktale of the magpie bridge linking the lovers, The Weaver Girl and the Cowherd, separated by a great river, which is the Milky Way, is printed on lovely Japanese paper, 11” x 14”.

There are variations of the folktale across Asia, but the story tells of lovers, the Weaver Girl, symbolized by Vega, and the Cowherd, symbolized by Altair, banished to opposite sides of a heavenly great river, symbolized by the Milky Way. Once a year, on the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, a flock of magpies make a bridge across the river to reunite the lovers.

The story is the inspiration for the Qiqiao or Qixi Festival, celebrated on the seventh day of the seventh month in China since the Han dynasty, as the Tanabata festival in Japan and the Chilseok festival in Korea.

It is said that if it rains on the day of the festival it means the river has swept away the magpie bridge or that the rain is the tears of the separated couple. 

I had planned a colourful image but sometimes the trick to relief printmaking is knowing when to stop. I took my 11 year old son’s advice and stuck to black and white.