Korean Children's Favorite Stories

by Kim So-Un

  Suddenly the snake once again came into his cell. This time it was carrying something in its mouth. It was a green leaf. The snake applied the green leaf to the spot where it had bitten the old man and then quickly disappeared again.

  Then a strange thing happened. No sooner had the green leaf been placed on the wound than the pain disappeared, and the swelling also went down.

  "What was the snake trying to do?" pondered the old man. "First it comes and bites me and then it brings a green leaf that heals me. Why?"

  But before he could think further, there was a great commotion outside his cell. "It's terrible, terrible!" the jailers were shouting. "What shall we do? The lord's wife has just been bitten by a snake. There's no time to call a doctor."

  The old man suddenly realized the meaning of the snake's behavior. He shouted, "Let me cure her! I have a wonderful medicine for snake bites!"

  The jailers looked doubtfully at the old man. But it was no time to stop and argue. They let the old man out of his cell and rushed him off to where the overlord's wife lay moaning and suffering in pain. All the old man did was to press the green leaf lightly against the snake bite, and the great lady was completely healed.

  The overlord was very pleased and had the old man brought before him. "Old man, where did you get that wonderful medicine?" the lord asked.

  The old man then told the overlord all that had happened to him from the time he saved his son, the deer, and the snake in the great flood, until the time the snake appeared in his cell.

  "Even such a lowly creature as the snake knows how to repay a debt of gratitude. But what kind of man would betray the foster father who saved his life?" the lord said in great anger. Then the lord ordered his men to bring the boy to the castle and to throw him into the dungeon.

  The kind old man was praised highly and given many gifts. As a last request, he asked that his ungrateful son be released from prison. The overlord was deeply impressed by the compassion of the old man and immediately granted his request. Then the old man and his son made their way home together. The youth had learned his lesson. Not only once, but twice, had his life been saved by his foster father. From then on, he became a changed person and grew into a good man.

  Deep in the mountains there stood a lonely hut. In this hut lived a mother and her three small daughters. The eldest girl was named Haisuni, the second Talsuni, and the youngest Peolsuni.

  One day the mother had to leave home to take some firewood to the market to sell. Before she left she called her three daughters and said, "Listen, Haisuni, Talsuni, and Peolsuni. Do be careful while I am gone, for there is a very bad tiger roaming the woods nearby. Don't ever open the door to anybody until I get back. Otherwise you might be eaten up by the bad tiger."

  So saying, the mother stepped out the door and went on her way.

  Just as she was leaving, the bad tiger happened to pass the house. He was very hungry and was in search of food. He saw the mother leave the house and thought, "Ho ho! Now's my chance! Now that the mother's gone, I'll be able to eat those three young girls of hers. They should make a tasty dinner for me. How nice that would be!"

  The tiger waited a while to make sure that the mother would not return. Then, when he thought the time was ripe, he crept up to the house and called out in his sweetest voice, "Haisuni, Talsuni, Peolsuni—Mother has just come back. Please open the door."

  Of course, no matter how sweetly the tiger spoke, his voice was not the voice of their mother. So the eldest girl, Haisuni, asked, "Is that really you, Mother? It doesn't sound a bit like you."

  "Why, of course I'm your mother," the tiger answered. "I was invited to a feast and there I sang so many songs that my voice has become hoarse."

  The second daughter, Talsuni, then asked, "If you are really our mother, then show us your eyes. We would be able to tell for sure."

  Hearing this, the tiger put his blood-shot eyes to a knothole in the front door and peered into the house.

  Talsuni saw the red eyes and drew back in surprise. "Oh my! Why are your eyes so red?"

  The tiger, a bit confused, hurriedly explained, "I dropped in at Grandfather's house and helped grind some red pepper pods. Some of the pepper got into my eyes, and that's why they are so red."

  The third daughter, Peolsuni, next asked, "If that's true, then let us see your hands. We could really tell then whether you are our mother or not."

  The tiger put his hairy, yellow paws to a crack in the door.

  Peolsuni peeked through the crack and cried, "Why! your hands are all yellow!"

  "Yes, my child," the tiger said, "I was helping our relatives in the next village plaster their house with yellow mud. That's why my hands are so yellow."

  In this way the very clever tiger fooled all the girls completely. Sure that it was their mother, they unlocked the front door. And who should come in but a huge, yellow tiger!

  "My, you children looked after the house well, didn't you?" the tiger said. "As a reward, Mother will cook a nice dinner for you." The tiger went into the kitchen, his eyes shining with greed.

  The three girls stood huddled in a corner, quivering with fear. "What shall we do? What shall we do? We shall soon be eaten up by the tiger."

  The three girls quickly ran out of the house. Then tiptoeing softly away, they quickly climbed up a pine tree growing near the well. There they hid quietly in the branches.

  The tiger soon noticed that the girls were no longer in the house. "Haisuni, Talsuni, Peolsuni," he called, "where are you?"

  And the bad tiger looked here and there, inside and outside the house, everywhere, but nowhere were the girls to be seen. The tiger passed the well and happened to glance in. There he saw in the water the reflection of the three girls hiding in the branches of the pine tree.

  "My, children!" the tiger said. "What are you doing up there? I want to come up too, but it looks difficult. Tell Mother how to climb the tree."

  At this, Haisuni called down, "There's some sesame oil in the kitchen cupboard. Rub some of the oil on the trunk of the tree. Then you can easily climb up."

  Quickly the tiger went into the house, got the oil, and rubbed it on the trunk of the tree. Then he tried to climb, but the oil made him slip all the more, and try as he might, he could not reach the girls.

  Once again, the tiger looked up into the tree and said, "Be good children, dears, and tell me truly how to climb the tree."

  Talsuni, the second daughter, unthinkingly let her tongue slip and said, "There's an ax in the shed. If you cut some notches in the tree trunk, then you can climb up."

  Quickly, the tiger went for the ax and began cutting footholds with it. One step at a time, he climbed up and up toward the girls.

  The three sisters were desperate. They were sure they would be eaten up. They raised their eyes toward the sky and prayed to the God of Heaven. "Please help us, God. Please send down your golden well bucket," they prayed.

  Their prayers were answered, and from the top of a cloud down came a golden well bucket. The three sisters climbed into the bucket and were snatched up, out of the teeth of danger, into the clouds.

  When the tiger saw this, he too prayed to the God of Heaven, "Please send down a well bucket for me also."

  Once again, a well bucket came down from the clouds. But this time the rope of the bucket was old and rotten. The tiger, nevertheless, climbed trustingly into the bucket, and it started rising. But when he was halfway up to the clouds, the rope suddenly broke, and the tiger came crashing to earth, right in the middle of a millet field.

  That is why the root tops of millet are mottled to this day. The reddish spots are from the blood of the tiger which splattered all over the millet field.

  On the other hand, the three sisters who climbed to Heaven were each given a special task. Haisuni was made to shine in the sky during the day. Talsuni was made to shine at night. And Peolsuni was to twinkle on nights when Talsuni slept or was on her way from the sky to rest. That is why the sun is called Haisuni, the moon T
alsuni, and the stars Peolsuni. To this very day, the three sisters keep at their tasks, taking their turns at brightening the whole world with their light.

  Once there lived a very kind and gentle girl in a remote country village. She was very poor and barely managed to make a living for herself and her old mother, whom she had to care for all alone.

  One day the girl was in the kitchen, just scooping up freshly cooked rice and putting it into a large bowl to carry to the dinner table. Suddenly a toad appeared in the kitchen as if from nowhere. It crawled over the floor laboriously, dragging its body, right up to where the girl was standing. Then it jumped heavily up onto the kitchen hearth. On the hearth were a few grains of rice which the girl had spilled while emptying the pot. The toad ate up the rice hungrily.

  "My, you must really be hungry," the kind girl said. "Here, I'll give you some more."

  And she spilled about half a ladleful of rice out on the hearth. The toad looked up at the girl in gratitude and then quickly gobbled up that rice too, all the while wriggling his puffy throat.

  From that day on the girl and the toad became fast friends. The toad did not go anywhere. He made his home in a corner of the kitchen and would come out at mealtimes to eat his share of rice right out of the girl's hands. This way of life continued day after day, until one whole year had passed. By this time the toad had grown into a huge creature.

  Now, this village had been troubled for a long, long time by a huge snake that lived in a nest on the outskirts of the hamlet. It was a very bad snake. It played havoc with the rice paddies and the vegetable fields. It stole cows and horses. It even kidnapped women and children and dragged them away to its nest, where it ate them up at leisure. Not once or twice this had happened, but many, many times.

  The villagers knew the hide-out of the snake. Its nest was in a huge cave in a rocky hill just outside the village. Master bowmen and famed marksmen came in turn to the great snake's nest to try and kill the monster, but none succeeded. Year after year the snake continued to harass the villagers. The people lived constantly in fear and under the threat of death. They never knew when the snake would come out from its nest and pounce upon the unsuspecting. They never knew where it would strike next.

  The toad's friend, the kind-hearted girl, soon came to the point where she could not bear to see all the suffering. Without really knowing when, she found herself thinking, "The villagers must be saved. There must be some way. Isn't there a good scheme?"

  But when bows and arrows and guns had failed to kill the snake, what could one single, weak girl do? After much pondering, the girl finally decided that she would give up her own life to save the villagers from this curse.

  "That's it!" she thought. "If a large number of people can be saved, it doesn't matter what happens to me. I shall offer myself to be eaten by the great snake, and I shall beg the snake never again to terrorize our village. Where guns and arrows have failed, my sincere pleas might succeed."

  Her old mother was now dead, and she was all alone in the world except for her friend the toad. So, once she had made her mind up, she put on her little shoes with their turned-up toes and slipped out of the house. Just before leaving she called the toad and, wiping the tears from her eyes, said, "We have lived happily together for a long time, haven't we? But today is our last day. I must say goodbye. There will be no one to give you your rice tomorrow. When you become hungry, you will have to go out and find your own food."

  The toad, of course, had no way of understanding the language of human beings. But the girl spoke to it in simple and gentle words, just as if she were talking to a child. All the while the toad squatted on the hearth gazing steadily up at the girl's face.

  The girl finally made her way to the snake's nest in the rocky hill outside the village. Forgetting her fear and her sorrow in her desire to save all the villagers, she stepped right up to the mouth of the huge snake's large nest. "I have come in place of the villagers to offer you my life," she said.

  "Please eat me. But, after this, please never again bother the village people."

  Nothing happened, so the girl continued speaking in this way for a long time. Soon night drew near, and darkness began to fall over the countryside.

  Finally, when the last light of day faded, the earth began to tremble, and the snake came out of its hole. Its many scales were a gleaming green, its red tongue was like a fiery flame. When the girl saw the terrible appearance of the snake, she fainted on the spot and fell to the ground.

  Just then a single streak of white poison flashed toward the snake. It came from the toad which the girl had cared for with such kindness. No one knew when it had come, but there it was, squatting right beside the girl. And though it was small compared to the snake, it was squirting poison with all its might to protect the unconscious girl.

  But the snake was not to be beaten so easily. It began spewing poison right back at the toad. Thus the snake and the toad matched poison against poison, the jets of poison crossing and criss-crossing in the air like two sharp darts. Neither would give in. This continued for one hour, two hours. There was no sound of clashing swords, no shouts of battle. For all that, it was a deadly fight, waged in grim silence.

  Gradually, the snake's poison began to weaken. On the other hand, the toad's poison became stronger and stronger. And yet, the fight still continued.

  Suddenly the snake let out a great gasp and fell down on the rocky hillside. Its great body twitched once, twice, and then it was dead. At the same time the toad, worn out with its struggle, fell dead too. The battle was finally over.

  A lone villager happened to pass by the scene of the fighting the next morning and found the small girl still unconscious. He took her to her home and nursed her back to health. In this way, not only was the girl saved but the whole village as well, thanks to the heroic struggle of a lone toad whom the girl had befriended. Now that the evil snake was dead, the villagers were able to live in peace and quiet.

  Once upon a time a huge tiger lay groaning and moaning by the roadside. A young student happened to pass by and see the suffering animal. He drew near, half in fear, and asked, "What is the matter, tiger? Have you hurt yourself?"

  The tiger, tears filling his eyes, opened its mouth as if to show the student that there was something wrong inside.

  "Let me see," the student said, "maybe I can help." The student peered into the tiger's mouth and saw a sharp bone splinter stuck in the animal's throat.

  "Oh, you poor thing!" the student said. "There's a bone stuck in your throat. Here, let me take it out. Easy now, it will soon be better." The student stuck his hand into the tiger's mouth and gently pulled the bone out.

  The tiger licked the student's hands and looked up into his face with tears of relief and gratitude, as if to say, "Thank you, thank you for your kindness." Then, bowing low again and again, the tiger walked toward the woods, turning to look back from time to time at the student.

  That night, as he slept, the student had a strange dream. A beautiful girl, whom he had never seen before, appeared in his sleep and said, "I am the tiger you saved today. Thanks to your gentle kindness, I was spared much pain and suffering. I shall surely show my gratitude to you some day/' With that, the beautiful girl faded away.

  Many years passed. The young student who had helped the tiger was now ready to take his final examinations in the capital city. As he rode along toward the capital he was thinking that if he passed these examinations he would become a government official and would one day become rich and famous. But many, many students came to take the test from all over the country. In fact, there were so many applicants that it was very difficult to pass the examinations.

  The student prayed in his heart that he would be one of the fortunate ones to pass the difficult examinations. But it was not to be so. He failed. There were just too many people ahead of him. He was very downhearted. "I have come such a long, long way to the city. But I suppose it can't be helped. Ill return home, study hard, and try again next
year," In this way he resigned himself to his failure and prepared to return to his home in the country the next day.

  That night, however, the young student again had a dream. Again the strange beautiful girl appeared and said, "Don't be discouraged. It's still too early to despair. I shall repay you for the kindness you showed me many years ago. Tomorrow a wild tiger will run loose through the city. That tiger will be me. However, no gunman or bowman will be able to kill me. I am sure the king will offer a big reward to anybody who succeeds in getting rid of me. At that time, offer your services. Just take one shot at me. You will be sure to hit me."

  The student was astounded to hear this and quickly replied, "No, no! I can't possibly do such a thing. Just because of one little kindness, I cannot take your life."

  "No, you mustn't think that way," the tiger said, still in the form of a young woman. "I am very old and just about ready to die. I have very few days left to live. Since that's so, it's my wish to show you my tremendous gratitude. Don't say another word—just do as I have told you."

  The student would not listen to the tiger. "But how can I do such a thing? I cannot commit such a cowardly act just to win fame for myself."

  Suddenly the girl flared in anger. "Why can't you understand?" she said. "By saying such things you are rejecting my sincere feelings of gratitude. Stop talking and do just as I have told you. Oh, one more thing—a number of people will be hurt. Go then to the Temple of Hungryung and ask for some bean paste. If you apply this bean paste to the wounds of the people, they will soon be healed." The girl repeated her instructions many times and then faded away from his dreams. It was then that the young student woke up.