Tales of a Korean Grandmother Read online

  "Now news travels fast, and it was not long before Sang Hun's older brother heard of his good fortune. The greedy man came hurrying to find out how it had happened. When good Sang Hun told him the story of the swallow with the crooked leg, Sang Chip determined to try the same magic himself.

  "With his cane he struck at every little bird he met during his journey home. Many he killed, but at last one little sparrow received a broken leg, and the cruel man caught it easily. He bound up the sparrow's leg with dried fish-skin splints. He kept it inside his house until the bird could hop again, just as Sang Hun had done. But there was no kindness in Sang Chip's cruel actions, and there was no twittering of thanks when that sparrow flew away from his courts. I have no doubt it twittered loudly enough when it told the King of the Birds about cruel Sang Chip who had broken its leg.

  "When this sparrow with the crooked leg came back in the spring, it brought a seed for this brother, too. Greedy Sang Chip watched with delight when the green vine from it began to climb the side of his house. But the plant grew far too fast. It grew and it grew, until it smothered his entire dwelling. Its great creeping vines pried loose his roof tiles. Rain poured in upon all his treasured possessions. It cost him a great sum to have his roof made tight once again.

  "Instead of three gourds there were twelve on his plant, giant balls almost as big as a huge kimchee jar. When the Ninth Moon came around, Sang Chip had to pay a carpenter several hundred strings of cash to open these gourds.

  "Here were troubles indeed. Out of the first gourd stepped a troupe of traveling ropedancers. It cost Sang Chip much rice and many hundred strings of cash before those traveling dancers would go away from his courts. Even more money was needed to get rid of the procession of priests who came out of the second gourd. They demanded ten thousand strings of cash for rebuilding their temple of Buddha.

  "Each gourd, sawed in two, brought fresh demands on Sang Chip's cash chests. A funeral procession, whose mourners had to be paid! A band of gesang, those singing girls whose music and dancing and bright waving flags always cost men so much! Traveling acrobats! A clown who needed much money for a long journey! A horde of officials demanding their 'squeeze' out of his tax money! And a band of mudang women, who threatened to bring the spirits of sickness into the house instead of driving them out! All these pests came out of the gourds to take away this greedy man's money. Jugglers, blind fortunetellers, and poets had to be paid, until but little was left. From the eleventh gourd there stepped forth a great giant who took his very last copper cash away from Sang Chip.

  "'At least we have the twelfth gourd,' Sang Chip's weeping wife cried. 'Surely we have been punished enough. Surely there will be food or something else good inside this last one.'

  "But when the carpenter sawed the twelfth gourd in two, there rolled forth clouds of smoke and hot darting flames. These destroyed every house, every stable, and every storehouse inside the rich brother's walls. His money was gone. His houses were burned to the ground! Where could the selfish man go now to seek shelter?

  "'We must ask help from my brother, Sang Hun,' he said to his wife.

  "'But will he not turn us away from his gates, as you turned away his hungry child?' the woman asked.

  "'I do not think so,' Sang Chip replied. 'Sang Hun has a heart as wide as the sky. He follows the ways of our father, who always gave with a big hand.'

  "Sang Chip was right. His good younger brother opened his gates for them and brought forth tables of food. And just as we give a home to your unlucky uncle, Sang Hun made a place for his greedy brother. That was as it should be, my dragon, for there was plenty of room in the fine houses with which the Bird King had rewarded him.''

  THE

  PANSU

  AND THE

  STABLE BOY

  I'VE LOST my kite string, Halmoni. My good reel is gone! I left it here on the chest in your room. But it is not there." Yong Tu was panting with excitement and distress. The boy was searching everywhere for the reel of precious silken kite string which his father had given him the day before.

  "Have you looked well in all the houses here in the Inner Court, dragon boy?" his grandmother asked. "The tokgabis may have rolled your reel under a chest. Or someone may have borrowed it. If you cannot find it yourself, you will perhaps have to consult the blind fortuneteller. He is a true pansu, who knows all things. It was a pansu who found the horse that was stolen from Sin, the stable-boy, in the old story. Though he might well have found it himself if he had had his wits about him."

  "Where did Sin find the horse, Halmoni?" said the boy, who no doubt hoped he might find his lost kite reel in some such place.

  "It is not a long tale. Listen and I'll tell you just how it was. Sin, the stableboy, was sent on an important journey to a distant town. He carried a present to his master's friend, who was soon to celebrate his sixty-first birthday there. The young man rode upon his master's fine horse, and all went well until, on the way home, he stopped for the night at a country inn.

  "When Sin rose from his bed on the inn floor next morning, his master's fine horse was gone. In its place there was only a poor sorry nag, as old as the Old, Old Men of the mountains. Lame in one leg and blind in one eye it was. You can imagine that Sin was afraid to go back to his master with such a broken-down horse as that.

  "'I cannot understand how this should have happened to me,' Sin said to the innkeeper. 'On this very journey I hung on the spirit trees a strand of hair from my horse's tail and bits of red cloth from his bridle. I threw pebbles on the piles of stones that honor the spirits along the way, and I bowed to the road gods. But no doubt it was an unlucky time for me to travel. Only last night I saw an arrow star shoot over the sky. That should have warned me!'

  "At the innkeeper's suggestion Sin set out a bowl of rice for the Spirit of the Stable where his horse had been sheltered. Bowing low over it, he cried, 'Spirit of the Stable, here is my offering. Take it and eat it! And be kind enough to show me how to find my lost horse!'

  "But no light came to poor Sin. He next sought out a mudang. The sorceress cast spells. She danced and she sang in the courtyard of the inn. She beat on her drum, the waist of which was almost as thin as that of an ant. But no fine horse came galloping back into the court.

  "'I must seek a pansu!' Sin said to the innkeeper. 'Only one such, who can look into both past and future, can help me in this trouble.' And he sought out a blind fortuneteller and begged him to tell him where to find his lost horse.

  "Like all fortunetellers, this pansu had several ways of discovering secrets. First, he shook his little tortoise box with its eight bamboo sticks inside it. And he called to the spirits that lived in these sticks, 'Good people,' he cried, 'be kind enough to shed your light on our darkness. Help this good young man find his horse!'

  "When the little sticks were thrown out on the table, the pansu felt them all over with his clever fingers, to find out how they had fallen. It was the same with the three coins he shook out of his little box that was shaped like a frog. Then the pansu nodded his head wisely, and he said to the wide-eyed stableboy Sin, 'Go! Buy a big bag of salt! Set it down before the sad animal that thief left in place of your master's fine horse. Let the horse eat all the salt it will. But do not give it water to drink. When the dawn comes again, you must set the sorry nag free. It surely will lead you to your lost horse.'

  "Sin obeyed the wise words of the blind pansu. Horses dearly love salt, my son, and this one ate almost all Sin poured out before it. The sun was just giving the sky its morning brightness when Sin mounted the sorry nag and let it go where it would. Off it trotted at once. Along the highway to Seoul and through the crowds on the streets it galloped straight as an arrow. Sin had to hold fast to the saddle to keep his seat on its back.

  "The horse finally took Sin to a village on the other side of the city. There at a certain house the animal stopped. It pushed the gate open with its impatient nose. Making straight for the water trough, the horse began drinking with great noisy gulp
s. Sin's eyes, however, were not fixed on that thirsty nag, but instead on his master's fine horse which stood tied in one corner of the courtyard.

  "'This is my horse,' cried Sin the stableboy to the Master of the House. 'You shall give him up to me, or I will go to the judge.'

  "Well, perhaps the Master of that House was ashamed at being found out. Or perhaps he did not want the judge to have him paddled for stealing a horse. Whatever he thought, he gave up the fine horse and Sin rode it home.

  "When the stableboy told his tale in his own Outer Court, all the men nodded their heads in admiration of the wisdom of the pansu. All of them, that is, except the old gatekeeper. 'You should have thought of that scheme yourself, Sin. Every stableboy should know that people never water their horses except in their own courts. By giving salt to that nag, you made him very thirsty. Where should he have gone but back to his own drinking place? And where should you have found your master's lost horse but in the stable from which that sorry nag came?'"

  "That's a good story, Halmoni," said Yong Tu, "but it does not help me find my reel of kite string."

  "Ai, then I must become a pansu and help you find it myself," the Korean grandmother said smiling. "Do you not see Ok Cha and her cousins making bamboo dolls there on the veranda? What could be better to make hair for a doll than a bit of unraveled silk string? And you must not scold Ok Cha too much," she said quickly, as Yong Tu started off towards his sister. "She has borrowed only a little string. Be gentle and be generous, my son! And who knows but you'll be rewarded with some strong, new kite paper."

  THE

  SPARROWS

  AND

  THE FLIES

  ONE afternoon Yong Tu and his sister found their grandmother lying down, under her tiger-skin rug. This seemed very strange, for at this time of the day she was usually busy with her embroidery needle.

  "Are you sick, Halmoni?" Ok Cha and Yong Tu asked, speaking together, almost with one voice.

  "At, precious ones, my head has been aching. Mice were running about inside it, but the good Spirit of this House answered my prayers and drove them away. Now I am only tired. Sit here beside me. Your talk will do me good."

  "I will speak you a poem I made," Ok Cha cried. "It is not so beautiful as the ones Yong Tu makes, but still it is a poem. Wong Si says it is good. Listen, Halmoni.

  "Why should we sweep

  Our court each day.

  When the South Wind

  Blows the dust away."

  The old woman under the tiger skin laughed. "Yé, it is a good poem, Ok Cha, especially for a girl. No wonder Wong Si liked it. She lives in the kitchen, but it still is her duty to sweep the Inner Court clean. She would no doubt like the South Wind to come every day and do her work for her."

  "Now I'll tell you a tale, Halmoni." Yong Tu was impatient to take his turn at entertaining his beloved grandmother. "It's about sparrows and flies, and it all happened long, long ago, when the world was just beginning. Hana-nim, the God-Who-Made-Everything, was still busy here on the earth.

  "Well, the sparrows and the flies did not like each other. They fought every day. So Hananim called them before him. 'What is your quarrel? You are a nuisance to man,' Hananim scolded them.

  "'The sparrows steal rice,' the flies said to Hananim. 'They go into the rice fields. They eat up the grain before the harvesters can gather it. They steal straw from the roofs of man's houses to build their nests. And they make such a noise that man cannot sleep. They are indeed a nuisance to man.'

  "'That is bad, very bad,' Hananim replied. 'The sparrows shall be punished.' And without giving the birds a chance to defend themselves, he had them paddled and paddled upon their poor little legs.

  "'Ai-go! Ai-go!' those sparrows cried out, for the paddling hurt. They hopped up and down, up and down, on their poor little legs.

  "'Hear us too, Jade-Maker-of-Everything,' those unhappy birds cried. The flies are far worse than we are. They lay their eggs in the young rice. They spoil the good grain. They buzz about man's ears. They creep into his food. Who welcomes a fly in the early dawn when he wishes to sleep? Ai, the flies are even more of a nuisance to man than we are.'

  "Well, the Jade Judge then ordered the flies also to have a good paddling. They stood before him rubbing their forefeet together, just like any prisoner, rubbing his hands and begging that his punishment be made a little easier.

  "I will pardon you both, if you will but cease your warfare,' Hananim said at last to the quarrelsome sparrows and flies. 'But you must not forget and begin fighting again. Let the sparrows always hop instead of walking like other birds! Then they will always remember the paddling they've had this day. Let the flies always rub their forefeet together whenever they come to rest. Thus they too will remember how they asked pardon here for their misdeeds.'

  "There! Do you like that story, Halmoni?' Yong Tu asked anxiously as he ended his tale.

  "It's a good story and a true one, no doubt," the Korean grandmother replied, "for the sparrows do hop and the flies do rub their forefeet together whenever they light. But that punishment has not done very much good. Sparrows and flies are still nuisances to man. Sparrows still steal at harvesttime, and there's a fly on my nose at this very minute."

  "I know a story about birds that were not nuisances," Ok Cha said eagerly. "Instead, they were helps. They saved a man's life. Shall I tell that story to you?"

  "Tell it, little precious," the old woman replied smiling. The chatter of the children took her mind off the dull feeling that still remained in her head.

  "My story is about a good Buddhist priest and some pigeons who made their nests under the eaves of his temple. The good priest fed the pigeons. He set water out for them. He allowed no one to harm them.

  "When Spring came, there were eggs in the pigeons' nests under the temple eaves. And when the eggs hatched, there were baby birds. One day a great roof snake crept out from under the tiles and crawled towards the nest. Quickly before their enemy could reach the young birds, the priest struck the snake down. He killed it with a sharp blow of his walking staff."

  "This sounds like the story Halmoni told us about the two brothers and Bird King," Yong Tu interrupted.

  "It begins like it, Yong Tu, but it has a quite different ending," Ok Cha said patiently. "Listen! The next afternoon the good priest set out on a journey. With his wooden begging bowl in one hand and with a sturdy staff in the other, he went forth over the land to ask for cash and for rice from good-hearted people. When night came, he was already some distance away from the temple. There a farmer offered him shelter, and he went into his hut. The tired priest sat down in comfort upon the warm floor of the farmer's house, and his head nodded in sleep.

  "Now one of the thankful doves from his own temple had followed the holy traveler to watch over him. While the man slept, the pigeon sat on a tree just outside the door. So it saw the great snake that crept towards the farmer's house. Somehow it knew that this was the Spirit of the roof snake the priest had killed. It had come to get even.

  "'How shall I warn the good priest before that snake finds and kills him?' the pigeon thought. 'My voice is too faint. I must somehow sound the temple bell. That surely will waken him.'

  "With flapping wings that pigeon flew back to the temple. With the help of its fellows, it tugged at the beam which the priests always swung against the sides of the bell. But their beaks were not strong enough. Then one of the pigeons flew with full force against the side of the bell. Boom! The sound of the metal, struck by the blow of the bird's dive, rang over the countryside. But the poor pigeon fell wounded onto the ground.

  "Boom went the bell again, as a second pigeon sacrificed itself for its good friend, the priest. One after the other, the birds flew against the temple bell. The priest came running up the path to find out what the matter could be. He had waked just in time to escape the great Snake Spirit. When he saw the poor birds lying wounded on the ground, he knew they had rung the bell and saved his life."

  "Do you thi
nk that priest could heal the wounds of the pigeons, Halmoni?" Yong Tu asked anxiously.

  "Who knows, blessed boy?" The Korean grandmother spoke comfortingly. "There are many stories about animals whom the good Buddha saved during his life on earth. No doubt, his priest found some way to put splints on the broken bones of his little protectors, just as Sang Hun healed the leg of the swallow in the story, 'The Good Brother's Reward.'"

  CLEVER

  SIM

  WHO

  WOULD

  "SQUEEZE"

  YONG TU and Ok Cha were helping to polish one of the great wooden chests in the apartment of their grandmother. They were rubbing the carved pieces of brass which served as its hinges and ornaments. Under their soft cloths the brass shone like pure gold against the gleaming brown wood.

  There were many such chests in the houses of the Kim household. There were clothes chests and treasure chests. There were huge cash chests like the one on which the two children were working. Smaller chests had drawers to hold rice powder for the women's faces, red color for their lips, and black oil for their hair.

  Halmoni sat on her tiger-skin rug on the floor, putting the finishing stitches into a new coat collar for her very best silk jacket. Coat collars in Korea had to be replaced often because of the black oil stains which kept the women's hair neat.

  "I can't reach the top bits of brass, Halmoni. This cash chest is so tall," Yong Tu complained.

  "It takes a big box to hold only a little cash, blessed dragon. Big enough for a man to hide inside—that's the size of a cash chest. And it was while he was hiding in just such a chest, that the King's spy in the old tale had a great fright."