Eerie Tales from Old Korea
Copyright © 2013 by Seoul Selection
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher.
Published by Seoul Selection
4199 Campus Dr., Suite 550
Irvine, CA 92612, USA
Tel: 949-509-6584
Fax: 949-509-6599
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.seoulselection.com
CONTENTS
Introduction
PART I
A Beggar’s Wages
A Hunter’s Mistake
The Donkey Maker
A Submarine Adventure
Necessity, the Mother of Invention
The Essence of Life
The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg
An Aesculapian Episode
Cats and the Dead
A Korean Jonah
A Brave Governor
Hen Versus Centipede
A Tiger Hunter’s Revenge
How Jin Outwitted the Devils
The Ghost of a Ghost
The Tenth Scion
PART II
The Story of Jang Doryeong
Yun Se-Pyeong, the Wizard
The Literary Man of Imsil
The Man on the Road
The Man Who Became a Pig
The Grateful Ghost
Ten Thousand Devils
The Home of the Fairies
The Snake’s Revenge
The Brave Magistrate
The King of Hell
Hong’s Experiences in Hades
Ta-hong
Publisher’s Note
We tried to preserve the original translations of the stories insofar as it was possible but have made some edits for the convenience of the contemporary reader. For the romanization of Korean words and names, we have applied the Revised Romanization method instead of the McCune-Reischauer system that was used in the original text.
Introduction
The nineteenth century was particularly fond of ghost stories. We only have to recall Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol to be reminded of this, and there are many other British and American writers of ghost stories whose names might be cited. The missionaries who came to Korea toward the end of the nineteenth century were no exception to this fondness, but for many years they were assured by the Korean scholars they questioned that no such stories existed in Korea. Eventually, they discovered that Korea too had its supply of ghosts, but because the stories seemed too frivolous or connected with shamanism and Buddhism, the scholars had been ashamed to tell them that they existed.
In actual fact, a main source of such tales proved to be the collections of yadam written by scholars. Yadam was a form of short tale originating in China and was very popular in Korea later in the Joseon period. The topics were extremely varied; the yadam featured stories about a great variety of social milieux and human types. Entertainment was clearly the main purpose.
Whereas the Confucian classics and Chinese-character poetry were the gateway to officialdom and the proof of scholarly excellence, the yadam offered an escape valve for a desire to be closer to daily life. The stories told in yadam were about individuals who were not always admirable paragons of Confucian virtue; rather, they were often artful dodgers who managed to escape from tricky situations, survive traps, deal with problems, and generally survive. The yadam were set in towns, frequently humorous or satirical, and often peopled by low-class, uneducated, poverty-stricken characters. Among them were tales of ghosts, spirits, monsters, paradise, and the underworld. The links to Taoism, Buddhism, and Shamanism are soon obvious.
The missionaries who came to Korea after 1884 were obliged to teach themselves not only the Korean spoken language but also the Classical Chinese that at that time was the official language of administration, scholarship, and almost all literary activity in Korea. Some of the first missionaries mastered both languages to a remarkable degree and began to translate texts written in Classical Chinese into English. The names of Homer B. Hulbert and James Scarth Gale are well known, and both men were outstanding scholars. Both of them were born early in 1863 and arrived in Korea in the late 1880s.
The role played by Hulbert in support of Korean independence in the years prior to Japan’s final annexation—when Japan was taking control of Korea—is well known in Korea. It culminated in his being sent by the Emperor to the Second International Peace Conference, to be held in The Hague in June 1907. After that he was unable to return to live in Korea. In the 1890s, a monthly magazine—the Korean Repository—was established by the missionaries to publish short articles about many aspects of Korean life and culture. It ceased to appear in 1899, and then, in 1901, Homer Hulbert established another monthly, the Korea Review, with much the same aim. It was published every month until the end of 1905, just as Japan reduced Korea to a Japanese protectorate. While a number of missionaries contributed to the Repository, almost everything in the Review was written by Hulbert, and for the first four years it carried portions of his deeply researched “History of Korea” each month, which mainly consisted of old Korean sources translated from the original Classical Chinese. However, each number also contained extensive extracts from the local newspapers, articles about various aspects of Korean life, and, occasionally, from 1902, Korean ghost stories. Presumably, these were mostly translated by Hulbert, but with the exception of “The Tenth Scion,” which was translated by Rev. G. Engel, he gives no source for them.
James Gale was more deeply interested in literature than Hulbert, and correspondingly less in politics. When Gale published his “History of Korea” in the monthly magazine Korea Mission Field in the 1920s, it was full of quotations of the poetry written (in Classical Chinese) by ancient scholars and ministers. Unlike Hulbert, who was an ardent advocate of a shift away from Sino-Korean characters to pure hangeul in the process of modernization, Gale deeply lamented Koreans’ diminished skill in Chinese character use following the abolition of the old state examinations in the mid-1890s. For Gale, the classical culture of China was an essential aspect of Korean cultural identity. It is hardly surprising, then, that Gale was delighted when he obtained yadam texts written by two ancient Korean scholars, Yi Ryuk and Im Bang.* He selected the stories he most admired, many of them about ghosts or supernatural events, others love stories or edifying tales of Confucian virtue, and published them as Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts and Fairies (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1913). Gale writes:
An old manuscript copy of Im Bang’s stories came into the hands of the translator a year ago, and he gives them now to the Western world that they may serve as introductory essays to the mysteries, and, what many call, absurdities of Asia. Very gruesome indeed, and unlovely, some of them are, but they picture faithfully the conditions under which Im Bang himself, and many past generations of Koreans, have lived.
The thirteen short stories by Yi Ryuk are taken from a reprint of old Korean writings issued last year (1911), by a Japanese publishing company.
Part 1 of Eerie Tales from Old Korea includes stories from Hulbert’s Korea Review Vol. 2–Vol. 5 (1902–1905), while Part 2 consists of stories from Gale’s Korean Folk Tales. The present selection of ghost stories has been made because I believe they should be easily available to readers in the twenty-first century, precisely 100 years after the publication of Gale’s volume. They are such fun to read! The literary style of the missionaries fits perfectly with the conventions of the ghost story in English. This collection does not aim to be anything more than a reprint of the texts published a century or more ago; the stories are mostly very simple and straightforwar
d. They do not need lengthy footnotes. They can be read without difficulty, and many of them serve to remind us that ordinary Koreans were more than a match for almost any kind of ghost, spirit, or goblin, and often walked away with a mound of treasure or a beautiful wife in the bargain!
In 1900, Hulbert and Gale were among the main founders of the Royal Asiatic Society-Korea Branch. They were its two first speakers and their papers were the first two published in the first volume of RASKB’s Transactions. And I am now president of the RASKB, a position that Gale held almost exactly a century ago. In addition, 2013 marks the 150th anniversary of their birth. What better reasons can there be to combine the ghostly tales published by these two great men for readers to enjoy today?
_______________
* Gale provides the following biographical information on the authors—which he took from Gukjo Inmulji (Korea’s record of famous men)—in his original publication of Korean Folk Tales:
Im Bang was born in 1640, the son of a provincial governor. He was very bright as a boy and from earliest years fond of study, becoming a great scholar. He matriculated first in his class in 1660, and graduated in 1663. He was a disciple of Song Si-yeol, one of Korea’s first writers. In 1719, when he was in his eightieth year, he became governor of Seoul, and held as well the office of secretary of the Cabinet. In the year 1721 he got into difficulties over the choice of the Heir Apparent, and in 1722, on account of a part he played in a disturbance in the government, he was exiled to North Korea, where he died.
Yi Ryuk lived in the reign of King Sejo, matriculated in 1459, and graduated first in his class in 1564. He was a man of many offices and many distinctions in the way of literary excellence.
Among many other writings, Yi Ryuk (李陸, 1438–1498) composed a collection of yadam, Cheongpa-geukdam (靑坡劇談). Im Bang (任埅, 1640–1724) was famed for his collection of yadam, Cheonyerok (天倪錄), from which these ghost stories are taken.
A BEGGAR’S WAGES
He was no beggar at first, nor need he ever have been one, but when the monk met him in front of his father’s house and, pointing a bony finger at him, said, “You will be a beggar when you are fifteen years old!” it simply frightened him into being one. I’ve forgotten his name, but we can call him Palyungi, which name will do as well as any. He was twelve and the only son of wealthy parents. How the snuffling monk knew that he was going to be a beggar is more than I can say, but perhaps he envied the boy and his good prospects and was sharp enough to have learned that you can frighten some folks into doing most anything by just telling them that they are destined to do it.
Palyungi was a sensitive lad, and he never thought of doubting the monk’s word. He reasoned that if he stayed at home and became a beggar, it would mean that his parents would also be reduced to want, while if he went away and became a sort of vicarious beggar, it might save them. How he induced his parents to let him go is not told, but one day he set out without a single coin in his pouch, not knowing whether he would ever see his father’s home again. He wandered southward across the Hangang River through Chungcheong-do, across the lofty Joryeong (Bird Pass), begging his way from house to house. So sensitive was he that he hardly dared sleep under any man’s roof for fear his evil fortune would be communicated to it. His clothes were in rags and he was growing thinner and thinner, eating sometimes of the chaff and beans that the horses left in the corners of their eating troughs, sometimes dining with the pigs.
At last, one night he was limping along the road toward a village when his courage gave out, and he sunk in a heap beside the road and gave up the struggle. He fell into a light, troubled sleep from which he was awakened by the sound of a galloping horse. It was now almost dark, but rising to his knees he saw a horse come pounding down the road with its halter trailing and no owner in sight. On the horse’s back were two small but apparently heavy boxes. As the horse passed him he seized the trailing halter and speedily brought the animal to a standstill. These heavy boxes, what could they contain but money? For a moment the temptation was strong, but the next moment he gave a laugh as much as to say, “I’m not fifteen yet, what good would the money do me if I am to be a beggar anyway?” So he tied the horse to a tree out of sight of the road and walked along in the direction from which the horse had come.
He had not gone a mile when out of the darkness appeared a man evidently suffering from great excitement and running as fast as he could go. He fairly ran into Palyungi’s arms. His first word was, “Have you seen my horse? I am undone if I cannot find him. He was loaded with the government tax from my district and if it is lost my head will be taken off and all my family reduced to poverty.” The boy asked him the color of the horse and other particulars and, when sure that this was the owner of the horse he had caught, led him to the spot where he had tied it. The owner was so delighted that he fell to crying and, opening one of the boxes, took out a silver bar and tried to make the boy accept it, but he would not. After urging him in vain, the man went on his way with the horse and the treasure.
So Palyungi’s wanderings continued for two years more. He slept under no man’s roof for fear of bringing it evil fortune but made his bed in the stable or under a pile of straw or in any nook or corner he could find. At last, fortune led him to the village of Yangju late in the autumn when the frosts of winter were coming on. Someone invited him in to spend the night but he refused as usual, telling them that he might bring bad luck. As he turned away someone said, “There is a fine house up the valley among the hills and no one lives there. It is said to be haunted. Every person that lived there was killed by the dokkaebis. Why don’t you go and stop there?” Palyungi thought it over. Here was a chance to sleep in a house without injuring anyone. He accepted the proposal and, after obtaining precise directions as to the position of the house, started out in great spirits. The dokkaebis surely would not have any interest in injuring him.
At last, among the trees, he spied the tile roof of a fine mansion. He entered the gate. All was silent. The open windows gaped at him. The silence was depressing, but Palyungi entered bravely. It was now nearly dark and everything was gloomy and indistinct, but the boy groped about till he found a cozy corner, and after munching a handful of boiled rice that he had brought in his sleeve rolled up in paper, he lay down and went to sleep, oblivious of ghosts and goblins. It might have been midnight or later when he started up, as wide awake as ever in his life. There was no apparent cause for this and yet he felt in the darkness about him an influence that was new to his experience. As he sat listening in the dark he heard a little rustling sound, and something soft and light brushed across his face like the wing of a butterfly. This was too much. He was willing to meet the dokkaebis in the light but it was unfair to attack him in the dark. So he felt about in his pouch till he found his steel and tinder and struck a spark. This he applied to some little resinous splinters that he had brought for the purpose, and immediately a tiny flame sprang up. Holding this above his head, he peered about him into the darkness.
He was in a large room or hall and the beams and rafters above him were concealed by a paneled ceiling across which rainbow-colored dragons were chasing each other. Out toward the middle of the room he saw two long snake-like things hanging down from a hole in the ceiling. He shrank back in dismay, for this was worse than dokkaebis, but lighting some more of his sticks he soon perceived that these two things were not serpents but rope ends moving in the breeze. It was the frayed end of one of these that had brushed across his face in the dark. Now this was a very curious sight, and Palyungi was eager to learn what connection these ropes had with the tragedies that had been enacted in this house. So he boldly grasped one of the ropes and gave it a violent jerk. Down it came, accompanied by a clang like that of iron. On the end of it hung an enormous key.
Well, of course a key always suggests a money box, and a money box always suggests a miser, and misers in Korea are the special victims of dokkaebis, so putting two and two together Palyungi thought it would be
worthwhile looking about a bit. Now, misers in Korea do not go and dig a hole in the ground to bury their money, perhaps because they are too lazy to dig it up every time they want to count it, but they often put it in a box and hide it among the beams above a ceiling. So Palyungi hunted about till he found an old ladder and then, crawling up through the hole in the ceiling, was rewarded by finding a small but very heavy box tucked away among the rafters. He gave it a push with his foot and sent it crashing down through the flimsy ceiling to the floor below. The key fitted, of course, and he found himself the possessor of a pile of silver bars, enough to make him enormously wealthy. There was at least four thousand dollars’ worth—good wages for four years of begging! How would he ever be able to spend all that money?
It was now growing light and, shouldering his treasure trove, he trudged down the valley toward the village. Before he entered it, he hid his box under an overhanging bank. He then went into one of the houses and begged for something to eat at the kitchen door. The wench in charge bade him come in and warm his toes at the fire. It seemed that it was a feast day at that house, and as the boy sat there in the kitchen on the dirt floor he heard the host in the neighboring room telling his guests a remarkable adventure he had once had. He was carrying the government tax up to Seoul when his horse ran away, and all would have been lost had not a beggar boy caught the horse and restored it to him. Palyungi’s ears pricked up at this. It sounded familiar. The man concluded by saying: “Ever since that I have been seeking for that boy, and I have laid aside for him one-third of all my income since that day, but I cannot find him.” Palyungi, knowing that he would not now be dependent upon the man’s bounty, opened the door of the room and made himself known. The gentleman clasped him in his arms and fell to crying, he was so glad. After a time, he told the boy that he had been provided for and should never need money again, but Palyungi smiled and said, “I shall not need your money for I have three times as much as your whole property is worth.” He then led them to the place where he had hid the box and disclosed to their amazed eyes the treasure it contained. He was now sixteen years old and the prophecy had been fulfilled. So he went up to Seoul on his own donkey like a gentleman and found that his father and mother had suffered no calamity through him.
Eerie Tales from Old Korea Page 1
