Korean Fairy Tales — Reading Companion

imming around in the waters outside his palace, the king of the fishes saw something hanging in the water that looked as if it were good to eat. So at once His Majesty gulped it down, when, oh horrors! he found he had barely escaped swallowing a fish hook, which stuck fast in his gills. It had been baited by some fishermen up in a boat on the sea top. When the king of the fishes found the dreadful thing in his mouth, he jerked himself away. The line broke but the hook remained, giving the king a fever and much pain.

How to get the iron out and heal His Majesty was now the question. All the wise creatures in the ocean, from the turtle to the gudgeon and from the tittleback to the whale, were summoned to the palace to see what could be done. Many a sage noddle was bent, and eye blinked and fin wagged, as the marine doctors talked the matter over in the council. The turtle was considered the most learned and expert of them all. Many were his feelings of the king’s pulse and his looking down into his throat, before Dr. Turtle would pronounce what was the real trouble or write a prescription for his patient. Finally, after consultation with the other doctors that had fins and tails, or were in scales and shell, it was decided that nothing less than a poultice made of rabbits’ eyes would loosen the hook and end His Majesty’s troubles.

So Dr. Turtle was ordered to go to the seashore and invite a rabbit to come down into the world under the sea, that they might make a poultice of his eyes and apply the warm mess to the king’s throat.

Arriving on the sea beach, at the foot of a high hill, Dr. Turtle, looking far up, found Mr. Rabbit out of his burrow and taking a promenade along the edge of the forest. Forthwith Dr. Turtle waddled across the beach and part way up the hill, climbing hard, until he began to puff and blow. He had enough breath left, however, to salute Brother Bunny with a good-morning. Very politely the rabbit returned the greeting.

“It’s a hot day,” said Dr. Turtle, as he pulled out his handkerchief, wiped his horny forehead, and cleaned the sand out of his claws.

“Yes, but the scenery is so fine, Dr. Turtle, that you must be glad you’re out of the water to see such lovely mountains. Don’t you think Korea is a fine country? There is no land in the world so beautiful as ours. The mountains, the rivers, the seashore, the forests, the flowers——”

If Dr. Turtle had let the rabbit run on, praising his own country, he would have forgotten his errand; but, thinking of His Majesty, the suffering fish king, with the cruel hook in his mouth, Dr. Turtle interrupted Bunny, saying:

“Oh, yes, Brother Bunny, this view of the landscape and country is all very beautiful, but it can’t compare to the gems and jewels, trees and flowers, sweet odors and everything lovely down in the world under the sea.”

At this, the rabbit pricked up his ears. It was all new to him. He had never heard that there was anything under the water but common fishes and seaweed and when these were decayed and washed up along the seashore—well, he had his ideas about them. They did not smell sweet at all. Now he heard a different story. His curiosity was roused. “What you tell me, my friend, is interesting. Go on.”

Thereupon Dr. Turtle proceeded to tell of most wonderful mountains and valleys down on the floor of the deep sea, with every kind of rare water plants, red, orange-color, green, blue, white, with trees of gold and silver, besides flowers of every color and delightful perfume.

“You surprise me,” said Brother Bunny, getting more interested.

“Yes, and all sorts of good things to eat and drink, with music and dancing, handsome serving maids and everything nice. Come along and be our guest. Our king has sent me to invite you.”

“May I go?” asked Brother Bunny, delighted.

“Yes, at once. Get on my back and I’ll carry you.”

So the rabbit ran and the turtle waddled to the water’s edge.

“Now hold fast to my front shell,” said Dr. Turtle; “we’re going under the water.”

Down, down below the blue waves they sank until they arrived at the king’s palace. There the rabbit found everything was true, as told by the turtle. The colors, the rich gems were as he had said.

Dr. Turtle introduced Brother Bunny to some of the princes and princesses of the kingdom and these showed their guest the sights and treasures of the palace, while Dr. Turtle attended the council of doctors to announce the success of his errand.

But while Mr. Rabbit was enjoying himself, thinking this was the most wonderful place in the world, he overheard them talking. Then he found out why they had brought him there and shown him such honors. Horrified at the idea of losing his eyes, he determined to save his sight and play the tortoise a smart trick. However, of this he told no one.

So when he was politely informed by the royal executioners that he must give up his eyes to make the king well, Brother Bunny broke out with equally polite regrets:

“Really I am so sorry that His Majesty is ill, and you must excuse me that I cannot help him immediately, for the eyes I have in my head now are not real eyes, but only crystal. I was afraid that sea water would hurt my sight, so I took out my ordinary eyes, buried them in the sand and put on these crystal ones, which I usually wear in very dusty or wet weather.”

At this the faces of the royal officers fell. How could they break the news to His Majesty and disappoint him?

Brother Bunny seemed to be really sorry for them and spoke up.

“Oh! don’t feel bad about it. If you will allow me to return to the beach, I’ll dig them up and return in time for the poultice-making,” said the rabbit.

So, getting on Dr. Turtle’s back, Brother Bunny was soon out of the water and on land.

In a jiffy he jumped off, scampered away, and reached the woods, showing only his cotton tail. Soon he was out of sight.

Dr. Turtle shed tears and returned to tell how a rabbit had outwitted him.

TOPKNOTS AND CROCKERY HATS

Long, long ago in China, even centuries before the great Confucius was born, there lived a wise and learned man named Kija. He was the chief counselor at court, and all honored him for his justice and goodness. He was always kind to boys and girls.

But when a great war broke out and a new line of rulers came into power, Kija declined to serve the king of the country and resolved to emigrate to the far East. There he would teach the savage people manners and refinement.

The new king was sorry to have Kija go, for he respected his character and wisdom. However he allowed five thousand of the best people, most of them Kija’s followers, to accompany their master among the Eastern savages. Many of the common folks wept when they saw the emigrants leave China the flowery country to go into the Eastern wilderness and journey to an unknown region, full of dark swamps and thick forests. Kija was going where there were no roads, farms, or houses, and the woods were full of wild beasts, especially big bears and terrible tigers that liked to feed on human beings. It was even said that there were flying serpents that had wings and leopards that stood up holding lightning in their paws.

Over the great plains of Manchuria, Kija and his army of people, little folks and big ones, marched ever toward the rising sun, until they crossed the Duck Green River, which we call the Yalu. After a few days more, they came to the Great Eastern River (Ta Tong). There the land was very beautiful and Kija resolved to settle and build a city. From the tinted clouds at sunrise, rosy, golden, flushed with every shade of red, and lovely with changing colors the new country had been named Cho-sen, or Land of Morning Radiance. As the sun rose and raced toward the west, where his homeland lay, Kija welcomed the good omen as a double blessing. He saw in the calm of his first day in his adopted country a threefold pledge of continued good-will between the new kingdom and the old empire, Heaven’s favoring sign of his loyalty to the Chinese Emperor, and the surety of good-will from the spirit of the Ever White Mountain.

Having laid out for his colony a city which was to be the capital of his kingdom, Kija began to build a wall. He named the city Ping Yang, which means Northern Castle.

“But now that we have safely arrived as after a voyage, the city shall be shaped like a boat,” said Kija. “Within its walls no wells shall be dug, lest this, like boring holes, should make the boat sink. Then also, on the outside, to the west, shall stand the rock pillar to which the boat city shall be forever moored.”

Kija was ably assisted by his wise men, who were skilled in literature, poetry, music, medicine and philosophy. Together they published eight great laws for the kingdom:

1. Agriculture for the men. 2. Weaving for the women. 3. Punishment of thieves. 4. Murderers to be beheaded. 5. All land to be divided into nine squares, the central one to be tilled in common for the benefit of the State. 6. Simple life for all. 7. The law of marriage. 8. Wicked people to be made slaves.

Kija laid out roads, established measures and distances and ordained the rules of politeness. He taught the savage people how to build good houses, each with roofs of thatch or tile and a kang, or warming place, by means of flues running under the floors. There was a fire at one end and a chimney at the other, so that the smoke came out of the ground half-way up the house wall. Twice a day, at morning and sunset, the people fed with fuel the furnaces or cooking place in the kitchen. Then the flames, heat and smoke passed through the flues, warming the rooms. Thus the houses were made cozy and comfortable. Every day one can see the morning and the evening cloud of the kang smoke hanging over the city. It is in these flues and around the cooking pots that Tokgabi, the merry scamp, plays his most mischievous tricks. He is a sooty fellow and loves nothing better than to amuse or plague mortal men.

The people of the land were very rough and savage in these early times and being constantly given to hard fighting, murder was common. So Kija found that he must devise some way to make them peaceable. At first he tried gentle methods. He saw that the rude fellows wore their hair long, letting their locks stream out over their backs and that they were often unkempt and slovenly to the last degree. Besides they hated combs and did not like to get washed.

So Kija republished the law of Dan Kun, the spirit of the mountain, who had two topknots. He ordered that every married man should bind up his hair into a knot, or chignon, on top of his head. Thus the Korean topknot was established by law. As for the younger fellows they must plait their hair and wear it in a braid down their backs. Until a man got a wife, he was only a boy, and must hold his tongue in presence of his elders. If caught wearing a topknot before he had a wife, he was punished severely.

Nevertheless the rough people mistook the good purposes of Kija. They used the topknot as a handle to catch hold of when fighting in the streets. The big, burly fellows pulled the smaller men around most cruelly. Furthermore, they were accustomed to crack each other’s skulls with clubs, so that many dead men were found in the streets. To stop these quarrels and murders, Kija invented a hat that would keep brawlers at least a yard apart.

“I’ll settle their quarrels for them, once and forever,” said Kija. “I’ll make their fun cost each man a pretty rope of cash. Every time two bullies fight, they shall have a lot of crockery to pay for.”

So Kija caused big heavy hats to be moulded of clay. These measured four feet across and were two feet high, weighing many pounds. These he had baked in ovens until they were hard as stone. They looked like big porridge bowls turned upside down.

Every fellow who had a bad temper, or was known to quarrel was compelled to wear a hat of this heavy earthenware. Whenever a crowd of men-folks got together they looked like a field of moving mushrooms.

When men fought they only cracked their crockery. In this way Kija easily found out who broke the law so that he could punish them. Then they had to go to the potter’s and buy new hats. This made it quite an expensive affair, for a good half year’s wages was required to pay for a hat.

Kija’s wisdom was justified. The earthenware hats proved to be a good protection to the sacred topknots and the men liked them. Quarrelsome fellows stopped pulling hair and smashing heads. It got to be the custom, instead of punching a man’s face or cracking his skull, to let off one’s bad temper in scolding and calling names, glaring frightfully, or rolling one’s eyes,—all of which of course made no blood flow. The bumpkin who could make the most frightful faces, grind his teeth most savagely, and look more like a devil than the other fellow, was reckoned the bravest and the victor.

Before many months, a street quarrel got to be a perfectly silent battle of ugly faces and terrible gestures. What at first promised to be a bloody murder usually became a noiseless duel, or a quarrel between deaf and dumb folks. This furnished violent exercise for eyes and teeth only, but it passed off like steam out of a kettle. In time a gentleness like a great calm settled over the land.

The crockery hats became all the fashion. They were very popular. Even the women wanted to wear them, because they were so useful. When turned over, they served as wash-bowls and many a good housewife borrowed her husband’s second-best hat to do the family washing in. They were useful also for feed troughs and drinking basins for the horses and cattle and for donkeys to eat their beans.

The women, though not permitted to wear crockery bonnets, were pleased with the way Kija treated them. He took the clubs of the rough men, which they no longer needed, and handed them over to the wives and daughters to use in pounding the clothes on wash days and for ironing. In this way, the Korean women learned the wonderful art of putting a fine gloss on the starched clothes of the male members of the family, especially on the long white coat of the house father. Thus by changing sticks that had been used as skull-crackers into starch polishers, Kija changed also ruffians into gentlemen. Ever since, Koreans have been famous for their politeness.

Happily also, the men grew more refined in their manners and were kind to their wives and daughters, because they saw such shining clothes. When hot weather came and the gentlemen complained of the heat, and fearing that perspiration might spoil their fine clothes, Kija allowed them to make inside suits of bamboo sticks, as fine as thread or wire. Thus the Korean gentleman wore his outer clothes on a frame hung from his shoulders like a hooped skirt. It seemed like taking off one’s flesh and sitting in his bones thus to wear bamboo underclothes.

By and by, as manners improved, finding garments thus made from the cane-brake so comfortable, the men gave up their heavy crockery hats. In place of these they wore “bird cages” made of horsehair over their topknots, and out-of-doors put on “roofs” of straw, reed, basket-ware, or shining black lacquered paper, according to their rank in society. Thus it came to pass that Korea is the land of hats.

FANCHA AND THE MAGPIE

A thousand years ago or more, there was a tribe in the cold and desert land of the Tartars, north of Korea, which grew to be famous in that part of the world. The men let their hair grow long and then plaited it into a long braid that hung down their backs, but they shaved the front of their heads. These people were called Manchus.

Almost from babyhood they were trained to ride on horses, and in time they became such bold horsemen and warriors, that they swooped down in thousands like clouds from their mountain land into warmer and richer regions. They had terrible bows and arrows, spears and swords, and they won many victories, so that other tribes joined them. They captured great China and invaded Korea.

As long as they had been wandering tribes in the desert, they were poor and lived on plain food that the grassy plains and forests could furnish, such as nuts, herbs, the milk of mares, and mutton. Their clothes were made of the wool from their own sheep. They were not proud, except of their strength, and they never asked who their grandfathers were.

But it was very different when they came to be rulers of a vast empire, rich and great like China, which had books and writing and a history of thousands of years. The elegant Chinese gentlemen and nobles used to call their conquerors the “horsey Tartars.” So they learned to wash and perfume themselves, and to care for jade, and tea, and porcelain, and silk, and other things Chinese.

Now it came to pass that when these people out of the desert sat on the thrones, and wore crowns on their heads, and dressed in satin, with jeweled robes and velvet shoes, they wanted to know who had been their ancestors long ago, and whence they came.

It would not do to believe that the fathers and mothers of so mighty a race were once common folks who in the distant deserts lived on acorns and pine nuts, with horse meat often, and mutton occasionally, and mare’s milk for dessert, or that they dressed in sheep skin and tended horses like stable boys.

Oh no! If the common folks, whom they now governed and made obey them, knew that the nobles who now lived in Peking and bullied the Koreans were once only stable and butcher boys, and had no houses but lived only in tents, there would surely be trouble. These Koreans and Chinese might disobey and rebel. They might even cut off their pigtails, which the Tartars had forced them to wear, and clip their locks, like men in Europe and America. These white-faced and bearded foreigners they called “Southern Barbarians,” because their ships came up from the south by way of India.

“What shall we do to make the Chinese and Koreans think we are somebody?” asked the Chinese Emperor of his wise men.

In the council it was the custom to ask first the younger men to tell what they thought about it, and for the oldest and wisest to speak last. They talked over the matter a long time. Finally one graybeard took off his goggles and made answer. He had on his nose a pair of horn-rimmed green glasses, bigger than those which anyone else wore. These it was supposed enabled him to look farther into the past and the future than his fellows. For the bigger the goggles, the more learned a man was supposed to be. He looked as wise as a stuffed owl, and was very fat. He spoke last, after all the younger counselors had been invited to give their opinions. Behind his back they called him Green Lamps, because of his goggles and their color.