Eerie Tales from Old Korea

by Brother Anthony of Taizé

  A HUNTER’S MISTAKE

  He was a great hunter. If a cash piece were hung at a distance of ten paces he could put his arrow head into the hole in the cash without moving the coin. One day as he sat at his door, three geese flew by high in the air. One of the bystanders said, “You cannot bring down all those geese with one shot.” He seized his bow and shot as the ancient mariner shot the albatross. The three geese came floundering to the ground.

  That night the hunter dreamed that three fine boys came to him and said, “We are going to come and live at your house.” Sure enough, that winter his wife presented him with boy triplets. He was inordinately proud of them. They grew up strong and handsome, but on their tenth birthday they all fell ill with smallpox and died a few days later at the same hour. The old man was inconsolable. He wrapped the bodies in straw and tied them, as is customary, to the branch of a tree on the mountainside to let the evil humors of the disease dry up before burying them, so that when buried the bodies would easily decay. Then in his grief he took to drink and would go about half drunk, bewailing his loss.

  One night a crony of his in his tipsy ramblings stumbled along the mountainside and fell asleep right under where these three bodies hung tied to the tree. Late at night he awoke, and the moon shone down upon him between the bodies. It was a gruesome sight. Just then the sound of a wailing cry came up from the village below where the sorrow-stricken father, staggering homeward, gave vent to his grief. The man listened. A murmuring sound came from overhead. Was one of the corpses speaking?

  “Listen! Brothers, we have our revenge on the wicked hunter. Hear his wailing cry. His life is wrecked. As we flew through the sky, three happy geese, he laid us low at one wanton stroke, but now we are even with him. Sleep quietly, brothers, our work is done.”

  The next day when the hunter heard of this he broke his good bow across his knee and never shot another arrow.

  THE DONKEY MAKER

  When he was a young man, the celebrated Jeong Mong-ju, the last of the Goryeo statesmen, went up to the capital to attend the national examinations but did not succeed in passing. On his way home in company with six young fellow travelers, he entered the outskirts of Majun in Gyeonggi-do. They were all very hungry, and seeing an old woman sitting beside the road selling bean-bread, they eagerly purchased a piece to stay their hunger till they should reach their inn and get a good meal.

  Jeong Mong-ju never did things in a hurry. He always preferred to wait and see how things turned out before experimenting. He noticed that the old woman did not give them the bread that was in the tray before her but reached around and produced another batch of bread from which she cut generous portions and gave to his companions. They ate it with great gusto, but before they had finished they began to act very curiously, wagging their heads and acting altogether like crazy men.

  Jeong saw that something was wrong. He suspected that the bread had been medicated in some way. Looking intently at the old woman, he perceived that her face wore a very curious, inhuman look. Going close to her, he said, “You must eat a piece of this bread yourself or I shall strike you dead on the spot.” There was no escape and Jeong evidently meant what he said, so she had to take a piece and eat it. The effect was the same as on his companions. She began to go wild like them.

  Turning he was amazed to find that his six fellow travelers had all turned into donkeys. He leaped toward the driveling old woman and said fiercely, “Tell me the antidote instantly or I will throttle you.” The old woman had just enough sense left to point to the other bread and say, “That will cure them,” before she, too, was transformed into a donkey. Jeong put a straw rope through her mouth, mounted her, and drove her furiously up the hill, lashing the donkey with all his might. It did not take long to tire her out. When she was exhausted, Jeong dismounted and, facing the animal, said, “I charge you to assume your original and proper shape.”

  The poor broken donkey began to wag her head this way and that and soon her form began to change to that of a white fox. Before the transformation was complete Jeong seized a club and with one blow crushed the animal’s skull. This done, he hurried back to his six unfortunate companions and fed them the bread that the old woman had said was the antidote. A few minutes later they had all turned back into men.

  That night these six young men all dreamed the same thing, namely, that an old man met Jeong Mong-ju on the road and charged him with having killed his wife, striking him on the head so that the blood flowed down on his shoulder. In the morning, strange to relate, it was found that there was a wound on the young man’s temple. The dreams proved prophetic, for when at last Jeong Mong-ju met his death at the hand of an assassin on Seonjuk Bridge in Songdo, the blow that felled him was delivered on that very spot on his head.

  A SUBMARINE ADVENTURE

  Haeinsa, the Monastery of the Ocean Seal, is one of the most important centers of Buddhism in Korea. It is in the town of Hapcheon and counts its monastics by the hundreds. Its archives are piled with wood blocks cut with Sanskrit characters, and the whole place is redolent with the odor of Buddhist sanctity. But it is the name which piques our curiosity and demands an explanation. The Ocean Seal does not refer to the marine animal whose pelt forms an article of commerce but rather the seal with which a legal document is stamped. The genesis of this name may appear fanciful to the matter-of-fact Western mind, but we can assure the reader that it is the most rational explanation he will find, and we would remind him at the same time that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in any Western system of philosophy.

  Hong Song-won was one of those literary flowers that are born to blush unseen and waste their sweetness on the desert air of central Korea. Virtue is its own reward, but that reward seldom takes the form of bread and butter, so while Hong was virtuous he was lamentably poor. His literary attainments forbade his earning his living by the sweat of his brow so he earned it by the sweat of his slave’s brow, who went about begging food from the neighbors. Curiously enough, this did not sully his honor as work would have done.

  As he was sitting one day in his room meditating upon the partiality of fortune, a strange dog came running into the yard and curled up in a corner as if this had always been its home. It attached itself to Hong and accompanied him wherever he went. Hong took a great liking to the animal and would share with it even his scanty bowl of rice, much to the disgust of the faithful slave by whose efforts alone the food had been obtained. One morning the dog began wagging its tail and jumping about as if begging its master to take a walk. Hong complied and the dog led straight toward the river. It ran into the water and then came back and seemed to invite its master to mount its back and ride into the stream. Hong drew the line at such a prank, but when he saw the dog dash into the water and cross with incredible speed, he caught the spirit of the occasion and so far curtailed his yangban dignity as to seat himself on the dog’s back.

  To his consternation, the dog sank with him to the bottom of the river, but as he found no difficulty in breathing and naturally felt some delicacy about trusting himself alone to the novel element, he held fast to the dog and was rewarded shortly by a sight of the palace of His Majesty the Dragon King of the Deep. Dismounting at the door, he joined the crowd of tortoises and octopi and other courtiers of the deep who were seeking an audience with their dread sovereign. No one challenged his entrance, and soon he stood in his presence. The king greeted him cordially and asked him why he had delayed so long in coming. Hong carried on the polite fiction by answering that he had been very delinquent in paying his respects so late but that several kinds of important business had prevented his coming sooner.

  The upshot of the matter was that the sea king made him tutor to the crown prince, who studied his characters with such assiduity that in six months his education was complete. By this time Hong was beginning to long for a breath of fresh air and made bold to intimate as much to His Majesty, who made no objection but insisted upon loading him down with gifts. The crown
prince drew him aside and whispered, “If he asks you to name the thing you would like best as a reminder of your stay with us, don’t fail to name that wooden seal on the table over yonder.”

  It was an ordinary-looking thing and Hong wondered of what use it could be to him, but he had seen too many queer things to be skeptical, so when the king asked him what he would like he asked only for the wooden seal. The king not only gave him the seal but the more costly gifts as well. With his capacious sleeve full of pink coral mixed with lustrous pearls and with the seal in his hand, he mounted the dog and sped away homeward. A short half hour sufficed to land him on the bank of the stream where he had entered, and with the dog at his heels he wended his way across the fields toward his former home.

  When he arrived at the spot where his little thatched hut should be standing, he found the site occupied by a beautiful and capacious building. Had he indeed lost the only place he could call home? Anxiously he entered the place and inquired for the owner. The young man who seemed to be in charge answered gravely that some twenty years before, the owner had wandered away with his dog and never returned. “And who then are you?” asked the astonished Hong. “I am his son.” Hong gazed at him critically and, sure enough, the young man looked just as his son would have looked. He made himself known and great was the rejoicing in that house. There were a thousand questions to be asked and answered: “And where did this fine house come from?” “Why, you see, the dog that you went away with came back regularly every month, bringing in his mouth a bar of gold and then disappearing again. We soon had enough to build this place and buy all the surrounding rice fields.” “And it has been twenty years! I thought only six months had passed. They evidently live very fast down there under the sea.”

  Hong found no difficulty in adapting himself to the new situation. He was well on in years now but was very well preserved, as one might expect from his having been in brine for the last twenty years. But he found no use for the seal that he had brought. After several months had passed, a monk came wandering by and stopped to talk with the old gentleman. In the course of the conversation, it transpired that Hong had visited the sea king’s domain. The monk asked eagerly, “And did you see the wonderful seal?” “See it?” said Hong, “I not only saw it but I brought it back with me.” The monk trembled with excitement. “Bring it here,” he begged. Hong brought out the seal and placed it in the hands of the holy man.

  The monk took a piece of paper and wrote on it: “Ten ounces of gold.” Then, without inking the seal, he pressed it on the paper and lo! it left a bright red impress without even being wet. This done, the monk folded the paper and, setting fire to it, tossed it into the air. It burned as it fell, and at the point where the charred remnants touched the ground was seen a bright bar of gold of ten ounces weight. This then was the secret. No matter what sum was asked for, the impress of that seal would surely bring it.

  They kept it going pretty constantly for the next few days, as you may easily imagine. The monk received an enormous sum, with which he built the magnificent monastery and named it appropriately Haeinsa, or the Ocean Seal Monastery. He went all the way to India to bring the sacred Sanskrit books and the wood blocks were cut and piled in the library of the monastery. Beneath them was hidden the marvelous seal, but Koreans say that during the last Japan-China war* it disappeared. The man who holds it is probably ignorant of its value. If his eye happens to fall upon this and he discovers the virtues of the seal, we trust he will do the proper thing, as Hong did by the monk who showed him its secret.

  _______________

  * Possibly in reference to the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895).

  NECESSITY,

  THE MOTHER OF INVENTION

  Han Chun-deuk was without doubt a very wealthy man, even from a Western standpoint. His annual income consisted of 200,000 bags of rice. He lived just above the Supyodari (Water Gauge Bridge), a fashionable quarter of the city in those days—namely, a hundred and fifty years ago. But he was as generous as he was rich. Fifty thousand bags of rice were consumed yearly in supporting his near and distant relatives and fifty thousand more in charities, or we might better say, in other charities. Anyone who was ill or in distress or lacked the means to bury a parent or take a wife had but to appeal to Mr. Han and the means would be forthcoming. In such veneration was this philanthropist held by the whole community that never was anything, not even a tile, stolen from his place.

  Such was the man whom one Jo, living in Nugakgol west of Gyeongbokgung Palace, marked for his victim. This Jo had come of a wealthy family but his elder brother, who of course took charge of the estate upon the demise of the father, had squandered the patrimony in riotous living and, dying childless, left Jo a legacy of debts. These had eaten up the remnants of the estate and now, thrown upon a cold and heartless world, the man—accustomed to a life of ease and uninstructed in any useful trade—was in danger of falling to the status of “poor white trash,” as that term is applied in certain portions of America. His wife stood in the imminent, deadly breach and fought back the enemy by making tobacco pouches, which she put on the market at ten cash apiece.

  One day Jo came in and sat for an hour in deep thought, paying no attention to any words that were addressed to him, but finally raised his head and exclaimed: “I have it.” His wife gave him a quick startled glance followed by a doubtful sort of smile which seemed to say, “Yes, you seem to have it very bad,” but she did not say it aloud. “Within two days we will be wealthy folks again,” he said. His reason was evidently tottering. “Hm! The price of tobacco pouches must have gone way up then,” she said. He gave her a glance of scorn. “Give me one hundred cash and I will build up a fortune as if by magic,” he cried. “This is no experiment. It’s a sure thing.”

  She heaved a sigh as if she had heard of sure things before, but nevertheless produced the hundred cash. With this small amount of capital he went to work and made good his word, for ere twenty-four hours had passed he was enormously wealthy. And this moving tale hangs upon the means which he employed to amass a fortune in so short a space of time.

  Taking his hundred cash, he left the house and was gone all the afternoon. In the evening he returned and spent the major portion of the night in putting a razor edge on a small knife that he had purchased. His wife wondered whether he were going into the barber business or to cut his own throat, but she asked no questions. The following morning, at a proper hour, Jo presented himself at the gate of the wealthy Han Chun-deuk and asked to see the master of the house. As Jo was a stranger, the gateman of course replied that his master was out, but as Jo was insistent he affected an entrance and, having announced his approach to the rich man’s reception room by clearing his throat vigorously, he bowed himself into the presence of the philanthropist.

  It was still too early for the usual callers to be present, and the two men had the room to themselves. After a few irrelevant remarks on the weather and the latest news, the caller came to the point. “Ahem! I have a very special word to speak to you this morning. The fact is that though formerly in good circumstances, I have become reduced to the greatest poverty and am in great need of a thousand ounces of silver with which to engage in business. Could you kindly let me have it?” A thousand ounces of silver! It took even Han’s breath away. A thousand ounces of silver! Well, well, here was a case. The history of his philanthropies had seen no such monumental effrontery. And he an unknown man, asking for a thousand ounces of silver before he had told his name or been in the room ten minutes.

  The good man fairly stammered, “But, but—how—but how can I give you all that silver when I don’t know you or anything about your particular circumstances, or your plans?” The visitor sat with downcast eyes and never a sign of embarrassment on his features. He spoke in a slow unimpassioned voice. “It simply means that unless you give me the silver, my life ends today,” and he fixed the poor philanthropist with a glassy stare that made him shiver. “Why, my dear fellow, how in the world—what is the
sense—I don’t see where the logic of it comes in. Here you come, a perfect stranger, and …”

  “That has nothing to do with it at all, I need a thousand ounces of silver or my life is forfeit.” “But a thousand ounces! Come now; let us say a hundred and I will let you have it, but a thousand—no, no.” “Very well,” answered Jo in the same quiet tone, and he rose as if to go but as he gained his feet he drew out the sharp knife, plunged it into his own abdomen, and cut a frightful gash from left to right; he fell headlong before the horrified Han and lay weltering in his own lifeblood. The poor philanthropist wrung his hands in an agony of fear. What should he do? The knife had fallen to the floor at his feet, and who would believe that the unknown visitor had killed himself? He sprang to the outer door and made it fast. Then he went to the inner apartments and sent one of the woman slaves to call his trusted body servant. Him only he admitted into the presence of the dead and told the story, and begged the servant to help him out of the difficulty. The latter thought a few moments and then said. “What is the man’s name and where does he live?” “He never told his name but from what he said I judge that his home is in Nugakgol.” “Well, then the only thing to do is to let me put the body in a straw bag together with the knife and carry it to Nugakgol, set it down there somewhere, and then under pretense of going for a drink of wine I can slip away. The bag will be opened and the people there will recognize the dead man and take him to his home.” “Just the thing!” cried the master, and a great load seemed lifted off his mind, but while the servant was away finding the bag, the fear came back, not the fear of detection but fear lest the spirit of the dead should bring him evil.