Tales of a Korean Grandmother Page 6

"From a safe distance the unhappy Spirit begged the old man to come forth from under the thorn tree. He wept and he raged, but he dared not approach because of the charm.

  "Then the Spirit remembered Old Tong's words about the things he feared most. He went off to the village and fetched a roast suckling pig and a jug of mackalee beer. These he flung at Old Tong, hoping to drive him out of his refuge.

  "Instead, to his amazement, the Spirit saw the old man eating the roast pig with great gusto and drinking the mackalee beer with delight. He shook his head in bewilderment, and he gave up his idea of whisking Tong up to Heaven that day.

  "But the Spirit Messenger was not yet beaten. He did not fly back to Heaven and give up his quest. For a hundred years more he waited and watched, hoping Tong would forget to carry with him the bundle he had made of the thorn wood and the foxtail grass, the ox shoe, and the salt bag.

  "At last the Spirit Messenger's patience had its reward. One day the old man did forget his good charm as he set forth to fish, and the Spirit carried him off to the Heavenly Realm.

  "Since then, all people who know the secret of Tong and his charm use this way of making sure of protection from evil spirits. It does not keep them from going to the Heavenly Kingdom when their time comes, but it drives many bad spirits away from their courts. Find me a house in all this street of ours without such a gate charm, and I'll show you a family with whom bad luck dwells."

  A

  FORTUNE

  FROM

  A FROG

  Yong Tu and his cousins were getting ready to take part in the New Year kite flying contest.

  BRING a gift for our guest, Yong Tu," the Master of the Kim household called to his son, clapping his hands to summon him to his side. For the hundredth time in this first week of the New Year, the boy ran to the heap of guest presents laid out in his father's library. This visitor was an important guest, and at his father's suggestion Yong Tu brought forth a roll of fine silk.

  What an exciting season the New Year was! Visitors constantly came and went through the Kims' bamboo gate. Sedan chairs, bringing Halmoni's guests, were escorted into the Inner Court. There, when the bearers had gone away, the women could safely crawl out from behind the chair curtains without fear of being seen by any strange men.

  The Kim houses looked very fine with the new paper on their walls, on their floors, and in the panes of their latticed windows. The paper flowers the little girls had made brightened the rooms. The best embroidered screens were set out, and the finest wall poems were hung. Each member of the family had on his shining new silken clothes.

  The children felt important because, on the New Year, each had become a whole year older. It was good to have two birthdays, Ok Cha thought, her own birthday in summer, and this New Year birthday which belonged to everyone.

  "Bring cakes and honey water for our guests, Ok Cha," Halmoni said again and again during these days. The golden drink with delicate pine nuts floating upon it was a favorite in the Inner Court. The sweet cakes made of rice flour or bean flour were decorated with bits of popped rice, colored bright pink and green. There were little raven cakes, too, so called because of the old story of the raven which warned the King that a robber was hiding inside the Queen's zither case.

  Ok Cha and the other children liked best of all the candy made of pine nuts and honey, this was the only sweetening Koreans knew in those long-ago times before sugar was brought from over the sea.

  "Eat! Eat!" was the invitation on all sides at the New Year. Koreans always like food and a great deal of food, but especially at the New Year season everyone ate as much as his stomach could possibly hold. That foretold the plenty he would have throughout the year.

  "Drink! Drink that your ears may be sharpened in the months to come!" people said. Even the small children then took a cup of the "good-hearing" wine.

  There were guest presents in the Inner Court as well as in the reception room of the men. Halmoni looked with satisfied smiles at the huge piles of gifts, ready for the giving. There were hairpins of silver with their designs picked out with sky-blue kingfisher feathers and dotted with coral. There were boxes of shining black and red lacquer, bits of embroidery, and pieces of silk. There were gay ornaments for the headdress of a bride, as well as candies and cakes.

  "Our gifts are worthy this year, Ok Cha," the Korean grandmother said to the little girl one afternoon early in the New Year season, while they sat waiting for the next visitor to appear.

  "How many there are, Halmoni! Oh, I do think they are beautiful!"

  "Yé, child, they are beautiful, and they are many. They remind me of the presents Lah and his wife received from the frog, but of course those were even richer."

  "Is that a story, Halmoni? Tell me about the frog and his rich gifts," the little girl begged, sitting down carefully so as not to harm her new skirt.

  "Yé, it's a story, Jade Child. It's a story fit for the New Year, for it tells of good fortune. The good fortune came to a poor couple named Lah, who lived in a hut on the Diamond Mountains. Both the man and his wife were unhappy because under their grass roof there was no son to pray to their spirits when they should have gone beyond the Earthly Gates. And they were too poor to adopt a boy to bring up as their son, who might perform this service for them.

  "Their fields on the mountain sides gave this couple only enough rice to keep them alive. The cabbage, turnips, and peppers they could raise in their rocky garden made only enough kimchee for their own eating bowls. They had hens which laid a few eggs, and they found honey in the nests of the wild bees in the rocks. So they did not starve.

  "For buying their clothes and their salt they depended on the fish which Lah caught in the nearby mountain lake and which he sold in the village in the valley below. So you can guess he was distressed when, one morning, he saw that his lake had dried up and the fish had all disappeared. On the bank sat a giant frog, as big as a man. It was just finishing drinking up the lake water.

  "'Wicked frog,' poor Lah' scolded. 'What demon possessed you to drink up my lake and to devour my fish? Have I not enough trouble without such a disaster?'

  "But the frog only bowed politely and replied in a soft voice, 'Honorable sir, I, too, regret the disappearance of the lake, for that was my home. Now I have no shelter. Pray give me refuge under your roof.'

  "At first, Lah refused, as he had good reason for doing. But the gentle words of the frog softened his heart. His wife also objected when her husband led the giant frog into their hut. But it was lonely there on the mountain side, and the woman was interested in the good tales the frog told. She brought in leaves to serve as his bed, and she thoughtfully fetched water to make it comfortably damp to suit a frog's taste.

  "Early the next morning, Lah and his wife were wakened at dawn by the sound of loud croaking. The din was as great as that of soothsayers trying to drive evil spirits from the stomach of a sick man. Hurrying out on their veranda, they saw the giant frog lifting his croaking voice to the heavens. But their eyes soon turned away from the reddening eastern sky to the shining treasures they saw in their courtyard.

  "Our New Year gifts could not compare with those the frog had provided for his good hosts. There were strings upon strings of copper cash, and valuable silver coins, too. There were fat bags of rice, great jars of kimchee, packets of seaweed, and good salt fish. Rolls of cotton and silk cloth; hats, padded stockings, and new quilted shoes; fans, pipes, and rich ornaments of silver and gold! Ai, who can say what there was not in the fortune that frog brought to Lah and his wife?

  "In the fine sedan chair the frog gave her, Lah's wife began to take journeys down into the inner courts of the valley houses. She made friends with the women there, and from them she learned more and more about the people of that neighborhood.

  "'Tell me about Yun Ok,' the frog always asked when the woman returned. Yun Ok, or Jade Lotus, was the youngest daughter of the richest yangban in all that northern province. She was, so the gossip of the inner courts had it, by far th
e most beautiful girl in the land. Her skin was like a pale cloud. Her eyes and her hair were as black as a raven's wing. Her form was as graceful as bamboo bent by the spring breeze.

  "'It is Yun Ok I must marry, Omoni,' the frog said to Lah's wife, whom he now was permitted to think of as his mother. 'Go, honorable Lah, go now and ask for Yun Ok for my bride.'

  "'I shall surely be paddled.' Lah trembled at the thought of asking the great yangban s daughter to marry a frog. But the golden words of the frog persuaded him. He went, clad in such fine clothes that the servants of the yangban swiftly admitted him to his Hall of Guests.

  "Now the two older daughters of this family had married worthless young men, and the proud father of Yun Ok was determined his youngest daughter should have a better husband.

  "'Is this suitor rich?' he demanded of Lah.

  "'Yes, great sir, he is rich.'

  "'What kind of jade button does he wear in his hat?' he inquired, which is the same as to ask what government office he holds.

  "'Well,' said Lah, 'that I cannot exactly say.'

  "'Is he handsome? What is his name?' All these were the questions the father of a daughter always asks of a go-between who comes to arrange a marriage.

  "'You could not call him handsome, I think,' the poor man replied. 'And his name? He is called Frog, for a frog he is. But he is a frog as large as a man, and golden words come from his mouth.'

  "'A frog! This is an insult! Bring out the paddles,' the angry yangban shouted. Unlucky Lah was seized and laid down on the ground, ready for a severe paddling. The servants raised the dreaded clubs with their hard, flattened ends. They were about to give Lah a terrible beating when dark clouds covered the sun. Lightning flashed. Such terrible thunder was heard that the men dropped their paddles in terror. Only when the yangban gave orders to untie Lah did the sun fill the heavens and earth with bright light again.

  "'This is surely a sign from the Jade Emperor of Heaven,' the yangban said sadly, and he consented to the marriage of his daughter, Yun Ok, to the frog.

  "That must have been a curious sight, a giant frog sitting on the white horse of a bridegroom. Of course the bride could not see it, for according to custom her eyes were sealed shut with wax. It was not until the wedding feast had been eaten that Yun Ok found out she had married a giant frog.

  "'Do not weep, Yun Ok,' her strange bridegroom tried to comfort her. 'Wait just a little!' And when they were alone in the bridal chamber, he gave her a sharp knife to slit his frog's skin up the back. When he wriggled out of the skin, the frog stood before her, a fine and handsome young man. Clad in a cloak of silk and wearing a button of finest jade in his topknot, he was a yangban of the yangbans. And he explained the strange happening thus:

  "'I am the son of the King of the Stars. My father, being displeased with some of my actions, decided to punish me. He sent me down to the earth in the form of a frog, and he commanded me to perform three unheard-of tasks. First, I was to eat all the fish in a lake and to drink its waters dry. Second, I must persuade a human couple to adopt me, a frog, as their son. Third, I must marry the loveliest lady in all the land. Only then could I return to his starry kingdom. Those three tasks have been done. But the hour of my return is not yet. When I go, Yun Ok, I will take you to dwell with me in the sky.'

  "The delighted bride sewed her handsome husband back into his frog's skin, and he went off on the journey a bridegroom always takes after the wedding, lest it should be thought he liked his new wife too well. While he was gone, Yun Ok only smiled when her sisters and their foolish husbands made fun of her frog.

  "Her yangban father, although he had given consent, was not pleased with the marriage. His sixty-first birthday was near, and as everyone knows, that is the most important occasion in any man's life. All members of his family were invited to a great feast—all, that is, except his frog son-in-law. And to provide the food for the feast, his other two sons-in-law were sent out to hunt game and to bring fish from the rivers and lakes.

  "When the frog heard of the feast, he called to him the king of the tiger clan. Take all the wild beasts, both little and big, into your cave. Mountain Uncle!' he said. 'Let there be none for those hunters.' He likewise summoned the king of the fishes and gave him the command to hide all the finny creatures on the bottoms of the rivers and lakes. So there was no game for the hunters, no fish for the fishermen, and no food at all for the birthday feast.

  "The yangban was dismayed. But as he wrung his hands over his plight, there came into his gates a procession such as had never been seen in his courts. Horses bearing wild boars and tender young deer; fish of all kinds; wild ducks and more game than the guests could possibly eat.

  "At the head of the procession was a chair covered with tiger skins and borne by sixteen men. In it rode a splendid young man. You can guess the yangban was surprised when he learned that this shining Prince was in truth his youngest daughter's despised husband, who had worn the frog's skin.

  "The yangban bowed before the Star Prince, although that is not the custom between a man and his son-in-law. He begged forgiveness for his neglect, and he offered the frog-husband the seat of honor at the feast.

  "But the Star Prince only bade his bride make ready for their long journey, and a great cloud from Heaven snatched them up to the sky. That night the wise men who study the heavens found two new stars shining brightly just overhead. What else could they be but the fair Yun Ok and her frog, the son of the Star King?

  "The fortune brought to Lah by the frog lasted throughout his whole life. His riches grew ever greater and greater, and he wore the jade button in his official hat. Through all the twelve months it was New Year in his courts."

  THE

  GREAT

  FIFTEENTH

  DAY

  I WASHED my face nine times, Yong Tu, and I cleaned my teeth with salt nine times, too," Ok Cha said to her brother on the morning of the Fifteenth Day of the First Month.

  "I combed my hair nine times, and I shall eat nine kinds of nuts today," the Korean boy replied.

  It was the Great Fifteenth Day, the day which ended the New Year holiday season, and it was the last chance to make sure of the New Year good luck. Each child raced with the others to see how many "lucky nines" he could collect during the day.

  The women also believed the number nine would bring them good luck. They gladly prepared the nine meals for the family; they swept the floors nine times; and nine times they stuffed fuel into the stove. The Master of the House himself bowed nine times before the tablets in the Ancestors' House.

  This dignified father of Ok Cha and Yong Tu was careful to omit none of the usual doings of this day. Under his watchful eyes his younger brothers and the boys made the three straw figures which should represent each of the three men of the household. To hide amid the straw, he gave them pieces of cash, Korean copper coins with big holes cut in their centers. He decided which old coats should be put upon the straw manikins. Together, all the men and boys of the household went to the gate to see the straw men tossed out into the street.

  "You should have seen the street boys fall on our straw men, Halmoni," Yong Tu reported to his grandmother. "They pulled off the old garments, and they tore at the straw to get the cash out."

  "That is well, my grandson." The old woman nodded her head in great satisfaction. "The more they kick the straw figures, the luckier our men will be. The bad spirits will be well fooled. They will think those are truly your father and uncles. The good spirits will read the paper prayers you tucked inside them. They will then help keep away ill luck from our house."

  Yong Tu himself wrote the prayers on the strips of paper hidden inside the straw figures. With careful brush strokes he had written this sentence on each, "For the coming twelve months, from sickness and bad luck protect me." The boy had kept watch through the bamboo gate until he could be sure that the straw figures were well kicked apart.

  "All the bad luck of the past year has gone with those straw men," the Korean grand
mother told the children. "Your fathers can now make a fresh start. They have cast out their old, unlucky selves. Today they are new men, beginning a new year."

  Sometimes Ok Cha and Yong Tu thought the Great Fifteenth Day was even better than the New Year itself. This two-weeks New Year holiday, with its visitors and its gifts, its delicious food and its firecrackers to drive off the spirits, were filled with pleasures. The seesaw was in constant motion. The girls, standing upright upon it, were tossed higher and higher into the air. Even Mai Hee, or Plum Child, Halmoni's oldest granddaughter, enjoyed this sport.

  No Korean girl of those times would have wished to seesaw sitting down. That was not the custom. Also, it would not have been nearly so breath-taking as to be bounced high in the air, and then to come down neatly again on one's two feet. For making safe landings, little girls like Ok Cha clung to a balance rope hung from over their heads.

  "My father used to say," Halmoni explained, "the reason seesaws were invented was because girls grew tired of being shut up inside the Inner Court. When they bounced high into the air, they could look out over the walls into the street beyond."

  On this Great Fifteenth Day the sky above the Kim courts was dotted with kites. Those that were lowest showed their red, green, and purple colorings. Those higher up were like a flock of dark birds, flying across the blue sky.

  Yong Tu and his cousins had finished the kites they were making for the contest to be held on this day. With strong silken thread they had carefully tied two splints of bamboo across each other to form a giant letter A'. They had run other silk threads from end to end on these rods, to form the outside frame of the kite. Then they had covered the frame well with fine Korean paper, made from the bark of the mulberry tree. They took care to leave the center crossing uncovered, cutting out a small disc of the paper, so that the silken kite string could be tied to the bamboo splints. The reels for the kite strings were as carefully made as were the kites themselves.