Tanabata sama (1941) – たなばたさま

Tanabata-sama” is a song about the early summer event Tanabata.

Today, it is celebrated mainly on the evening of July 7, and is written in Kanji as “Nana Yuu” (seven evenings). It is also called the Star Festival.

There is an original story behind this event. The goddess Orihime (Vega in the constellation Lyra), who was a master weaver and never dressed herself, and the star Checker (Altair in the constellation Aquila), also known as Hikoboshi, who often kept cows and plowed the fields and worked hard, were pitied by the two stars, and they were brought together by Deneb in the constellation Cygnus, which makes up the “Great Summer Triangle” of constellations, to get married. The two stars were then married.

However, as soon as they were married, they stopped working because of the joy of being together, and God became angry and divided them into the western and eastern parts of the Milky Way. However, they were allowed to meet only once a year, on Tanabata day… This is the sad but romantic story behind the story.

Every year, on July 7, the news all talk about the weather for the night, and for some reason, there seems to be a high probability of rain. The weathercasters say this is “the sad tears of Orihime and Hikoboshi” or “tears of joy,” but I don’t think the weather on the ground has anything to do with the universe.

Nowadays, it is mainly an event for children to decorate bamboo leaves with strips of paper on which they draw their wishes. You can often see them at supermarkets during this time of the year.

Even today, the Tanabata Festival is held throughout the country, and the ones from Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture are the most famous.