Tales of a Korean Grandmother Page 11

  "This brought the thief to a standstill. 'The Master of this House does not see me. How can he know I am here?' he thought to himself. And he held his breath, listening and looking about him.

  "The voice came again. 'Now he stops to listen! Now he stops to look!'

  "The thief could not understand how the man inside the house knew just what he was doing. But he was bold, and he began to creep toward the light that shone through the window paper.

  "'He bends down! He creeps!' The voice of Yi, telling the story to his old wife, came clearer and clearer.

  "'How can he know each thing I do?' the robber thought. He began to be frightened. 'This must be the house of a spirit,' he said to himself. 'I had best get out of here.'

  "And as he turned to run away, the voice of Old Yi followed him. 'He's off,' it cried. 'Soon he will be safe!'

  "And that thief ran as fast as ever he could, leaping the wall at the very first try and never stopping until he reached his brother thieves in the town down in the valley.

  "All those wicked men shook their heads at the tale their frightened friend told them. And none of them ever again tried to rob the house of Old Yi who bought the farmer's story for a hundred strings of cash!"

  THE

  TWO

  STONE

  GIANTS

  DOG was barking, and servants were rushing this way and that in the Outer Court. Old Pak had run to open the bamboo gate, and Yong Tu and his cousins raced around the corner of the Hall of Perfect Learning. The Master of the House was returning from his journey to Songdo, the old High Tree Capital, far to the north. His traveling chair was already in sight down the street.

  The sedan chair bearers in their blue suits and red sashes trotted in through the bamboo gate. They seemed as fresh as if they had not borne their master many miles over the rough Korean country roads. Kim Hong Chip rose from his scat on the floor of the little curtained box which they had set down on the ground. He stepped stiffly out between the poles on which it was slung and walked across the hard-packed earth of the courtyard. Even with changing his position again and again, and with descending from the chair to walk over smooth level parts of the roads, his legs were cramped with his long journey.

  "Bring the package to the Inner Court," Kim Hong Chip said to a servant. Then, followed by the children, he made his way to Halmoni's apartment to report his safe return.

  The old woman's eyes sparkled with pleasure when the package disclosed two beautiful bowls of clear, sea-green porcelain. Songdo, once the capital and the center of Korean art, was famous for such delicate vases with their patterns wrought clearly under the gleaming green surface.

  All the family gathered about the Master of the House when he had finished his evening meal. He was tired, and his wife had brought his eating table to him in Halmoni's room. No one spoke while the Master was dining, for in Korea then it was thought that talk spoiled the food. "Eat while you eat, and talk when you have finished," Halmoni taught her grandchildren.

  "Tell us of your journey, great traveler," the old woman said when the brass rice spoon had been laid down and the chopsticks had been wiped clean of kimcbee and put into their embroidered case.

  "It was a good journey, and luck traveled with me," Kim Hong Chip began. "There were demon posts often along the way to frighten off the bad spirits. We took care to toss stones on the spirit piles under the trees. And I got down out of my chair to bow before the two great miryeks. These men of stone are very big, Omoni. They look very powerful. Bad spirits surely must fear them."

  The man was speaking of two giant stone figures along the travel route between Korea's capital city, Seoul, and its former old High Tree Capital, Songdo. All through this land there are stone figures like these, which the people called miryeks, or men of stone. Smaller ones are the devil posts, set up to protect villages and roads from bad spirits which might be riding by on the winds. Others are great giants in stone, carved on the faces of the cliffs or out of some rocky point.

  "Were those two miryeks as big as the White Buddha, Abuji?" Yong Tu asked his father. The boy once made a picnic journey with his family to see this Great White Buddha which is carved on a cliff a few miles from their city of Seoul. A stream ran at its foot. The country folk in the valley there say that no matter how great the floods are, water never touches the garments of this likeness of the wise teacher, Buddha. A little roof over its towering head keeps the rain and the sleet from washing the statue's white paint away too quickly.

  "Yé, my son, these two miryeks are even taller than the White Buddha. Like a giant man and his wife, they stand side by side. A man and a woman they are, too, carved from great pointed rocks."

  "There's a story about those two miryeks," Halmoni said, thoughtfully. "They were built to drive away beggars, not spirits, so my grandmother said. And they did drive the beggars away, but not as their builder had planned."

  "Now I recall that tale, too, Omoni," the old woman's son said. "Tell it to the children, as you told it to me when I was the age of Yong Tu."

  "Well, those miryeks are not far from the place where a rich man once lived. He had a fine house with five different gates. I do not remember his name, but we may as well call him Yong. Yong's heart was kind, like that of Yo in the story of the Magic Cat. Like Woo, the Spoonmaker, he never could bring himself to turn beggars away from his gate.

  "In processions the beggars came. Buddhist priests with their begging bowls and little brass bells; poor farmers whose rice plants had yielded no grain that year; even city folk from whom wicked officials had taken their last strings of cash—all these trod the well-worn path to Yong's open gates. The servants in that household were kept running back and forth from morning till night to put rice and cash into the outstretched hands of those beggars.

  "But when water is always poured out of a bowl and none is poured in, the bowl soon is empty, my little dragons. So it was with Yong's cash chests. He became frightened at the lessening number of the coins on their bottoms.

  "One afternoon a traveler knocked at the gate and asked if he might come in for a rest. This one was an old man, and he wore a poet's hat. Yong invited the aged scholar into his House of Guests. He offered him a bowl of hot rice and a cup of good wine to refresh him.

  "'Wisdom drips from your tongue, honorable sir,' Yong said to his visitor. 'Give me of your jade counsel. So many cash have I given away to the beggars who crowd my gate that my fortune soon will be gone. Yet I cannot bring myself to turn them away. What can I do?'

  "The old man sat quiet, thinking. Then he spoke thus, It is very simple. If the Great Man will come out with me into the courtyard, I will show him the way.' There he pointed to two tall pillars of stone which jutted out of a cliff not far away. 'Make those two rocks into miryeks. Carve them into a giant man and a giant woman. When the great stone figures are completed, I promise you no more beggars will come to your gate.'

  "When the old man had departed, Yong thought long over his words. 'Making miryeks would cost too much,' he said at first. But so many more beggars clamored for cash that he decided to follow the old man's advice.

  "And the stone carving did cost much. It cost all the cash in all the rich man's money boxes. But finally the two giant miryeks stood there, as tall and as powerful as they look today. Each wore a stone hat on its head and stone robes on its shoulders.

  "Not long thereafter the learned old traveler again called at Yong's gate. But Yong had no pleasant, polite words of welcome for him this time. He grabbed him by his gray topknot, and he shook him well. 'How dare you come back here again, Old Man?' he cried. 'You have brought ruin upon me, you and your miryeks!'

  "But the old man only smiled and asked, 'Will the Great Man be pleased to have a little patience? What was the charm you asked of me?'

  "'I asked for a charm to keep beggars away.'

  "'And does this charm not work? I saw no beggars at your gate.'

  "Yong looked crestfallen. 'No, there are no beggars there,' he admitted.
'They well know there is nothing here for them now.'

  "'Then you should not complain. I gave you the charm for which you asked. And you have learned what everyone else in this land knows—the only place where beggars are not is where there is nothing to be given away.'

  "Yong bowed to the old man, begging his pardon. 'You speak wise words again,' he said, 'it is I who have been foolish. But it would have been better for me to empty my money chests for poor hungry beggars rather than for those two people of stone.'"

  THE

  MOLE

  AND

  THE

  MIRYEK

  HALMONI knew another story about miryeks. She told it to Yong Tu one day in winter when he and the other boys were building a snow miryek out in the courtyard.

  The white flakes had been falling and falling for several days, and the great mountains about Seoul rose in a vast white wall against the winter sky. The wind had been blowing during the night. There were deep drifts in the corners of the Inner Court, splendid for gathering by the handfuls to build up the figure of a snow man. The boys had worked well. Their snow miryek stood up very straight, as if it were proud of the old horsehair hat they set on its head.

  The accident happened while the children were having their evening rice. When all the eating bowls were emptied, they begged Halmoni to come out to see the fine miryek they had completed.

  But Dog had been there before her. Perhaps he thought there was a rat inside the snow man, or perhaps he had been chasing the black cat again. However it was, there were the prints of his scratching feet at the base of the snow man. And now instead of standing up tall and proud, the snow miryek had toppled far over to one side, and his hat had tumbled off. It was too late to rebuild their snow man that evening. It was to make the boys forget their disappointment that the Korean grandmother told them the story of the mole and the miryek.

  "This is the story of a mole who lived down under the ground and a proud miryek who raised his head high to the heavens," Halmoni began. "All fathers and mothers think their children are perfect. Even the porcupine says its little ones are pleasant and smooth to the touch. But this Mole had a daughter who was truly a dragon child. Her skin was like softest satin, and her little nose and her claws were delicately pointed. Truly she was a perfect mole.

  "'Where shall we ever find a husband good enough for our dear daughter?' the mole asked his wife. 'She deserves the highest personage in all this universe.'

  "'We could send the go-between to the King of all the moles,' the mole mother replied. 'Nowhere in his kingdom would he find a bride so fair as our beautiful daughter.'

  "'But the King of the Moles is not the highest personage in the universe,' the mole father cried. 'None but the greatest is good enough for our jade daughter. The sky looks down on the Mole King. I shall go to the sky.'

  "'But I am not the all-highest,' the sky said when the mole came to his gate. 'The sun rules over me. The sun tells me when I am to be bright and when I am to be dark. Go find the sun, if you seek the all-highest.'

  "'Nor am I all-powerful,' the sun said to the mole. 'It is the cloud which tells me when my face shall be bright, and when my face shall be darkened. Go find the cloud.'

  "So the mole knocked at the gate of the Cloud King. There he received this reply. 'It is true I cover the sun. I send forth the lightning. In my hands I hold the thunder. But I am not the all-highest. Go find the wind. The wind drives us clouds hither and yon across the broad sky.'

  "When the mole stood before the wind, he trembled. Now he was sure he had found the greatest personage in all the universe. 'I seek the one who has power over all things,' he said, bowing low to the wind. 'My daughter is so perfect that only that one is fit to be her husband.'

  "'I am surely not that one, honorable Mole,' the wind said, blowing forth his great puffing breath, it is true I drive the clouds and the rain where I will. I can bend trees down to the ground. But there is one thing over which I have no power. That is the stone miryek that stands just above your underground home. I can puff and I can blow, but I cannot move that stone man even the breadth of a fly's wing.'

  "Now this was indeed a surprise to the ambitious Mole. But he went back home again and bowed before the stone giant that towered so high above his underground home.

  "'Yé, honorable neighbor,' the miryek said when the mole had told him of his quest, it is true I am strong. The sky cannot harm me, for all it looks down upon me. The sun cannot melt me, no matter how fiercely it burns. The clouds, with their rain, their lightning and their thunder, can in no way bring me misfortune. In all the broad universe there is but one person I fear.'

  "'Tell me who that one is, great miryek,' begged the mole.

  "'It is a mole!'

  "'A mole? How could that be, great one? A mole is but a small creature, living deep in the ground.'

  "'But it is only a mole who can dig the earth from under my feet. Should a mole dig there long enough, I would begin to topple over. Should he keep on digging, in time I would be lying face down on the earth. Ye, the mole is the one being I fear.'

  "Now at last the mole was satisfied that he had discovered the husband best suited to his dragon child. He called in the go-between, and they soon arranged a marriage with a fine, handsome young mole. I am sure that they chose wisely, that the young couple lived happily together, and that they had many sons in their underground home."

  "And I hope that the moles do not dig under the two stone miryeks the way Dog dug under our snow man," Ok Cha finished the story for her grandmother in her own gentle way.

  THE

  KING'S

  SEVENTH

  DAUGHTER

  AS SOON as Old Pak the Gatekeeper brought the bad news, the Korean grandmother called all the children into the house.

  "The Great Spirit of Smallpox is a guest in the courts of our neighbors next door. You must all stay indoors until he is gone. Everyone must speak softly, lest the Guest should be curious and fly over our wall. Not until he rides away again, shall wood be cut in our courts, nor shall nails be driven."

  "Why, Halmoni? Why are we not to cut wood? Why are we not to drive nails?" Yong Tu asked.

  "It is your own playmate Ho Cha who is now under the spell of that dreadful Guest. Do you want him to be marked with great pits in his face? Do you want our nails to blind his eyes? Don't ask such foolish questions."

  The children well understood why their grandmother was so easily upset on this day. The coming of the Great Spirit of Smallpox to their neighborhood was a terrible thing. No charm was known that would drive him away before the full thirteen days of his visit were over.

  Halmoni, like other Korean grandmothers, knew good charms against many of the spirits of sickness. When Ok Cha had pains in her stomach, her grandmother was wise enough to rub her well with a cat's skin. This, of course, frightened away the mice that were gnawing at her inside. When Yong Tu had whooping cough, which Koreans called the "donkey cough," Halmoni had sent at once for the medicine made out of donkey hair. It would help greatly, she thought, to dislodge the bad spirit that tickled his throat.

  But Halmoni had no charm against this unwelcome Smallpox Guest. Nor had the wise doctors. Their long needles, thrust into a sick person's body, drove some spirits out, but not the Smallpox Fiend.

  The mudangs, the women sorcerers, who came with their drums and their dancing, were the most powerful of all Korean doctors of those times. But even they could not shorten the stay of the Smallpox Guest.

  "Thirteen days is a long time to be shut inside the house, Halmoni," the children complained.

  Each morning the children peeped out at the neighbor's grass roof, hoping to see there the little wood horse on which the Smallpox Fiend would ride away. There would be on its back a wee bag of rice, some cash for his journey, and a bright red umbrella to shield him from the weather. It was well to be very polite to this curious guest. Whether he left joy or sorrow behind him depended on his good humor.

  Ok Cha longe
d for the seesaw out in the pleasant court. Yong Tu missed his good games. He was just learning to kick the shuttlecock with the side of his foot, and he did not want to forget how.

  On the twelfth day the Kims could hear the drums beating and the mudangs singing to honor the Smallpox Guest at its farewell feast. One of these wise women who knew so much about magic was always called in on such an important occasion.

  "Ever since the King's Seventh Daughter cured the Queen of her sickness, the mudangs have been honored here in our land," the Korean grandmother told the children as they listened to the strange sounds that came drifting over their wall.

  "That was in the days when there was more than one kingdom, and more than one king, in our Dragon Backed Country. One of these kings had six babies born to him, but, ai, all were girls. Six times had the fringe of straw, telling of a baby's birth, been hung across the palace gate. But not once had there been bits of charcoal knotted in it to proclaim the great joy that comes with the birth of a son.

  "'Do not feel sad,' the courtiers said to the King. 'Next time surely it will be a boy.' But the seventh child proved also to be only a girl. The King was so angry that he said, i will not have her! Cast her into the sea!'

  "The Queen wept bitter tears. She loved all her babies, though they were but girls. But a wife must always obey her husband's command. That poor baby girl was locked up within a stone chest. The chest was taken in a boat far out on the sea. There it was dropped into the deep, deep, deep water.

  "You will scarcely believe it, my children, but that heavy stone chest rode on the flashing blue waves, just like a boat. And at last it was washed up on the shore at the feet of a good priest. 'Here is the royal seal,' the priest said. 'This chest surely contains a prize of great value.' He opened the stone box with care. Behold, there was the baby, breathing and smiling as happily as if she had been in her dear mother's arms.