Tales of a Korean Grandmother (12 page)

A
STORY
FOR
SALE

O
NE
hot summer afternoon Halmoni and her grand-children were sitting, pleasantly idle, beside the cool sparkling brook in the Garden of Green Gems. They were talking of this and of that, of nothing in particular. As usual at such times, one of the children said, "Tell us a story, Halmoni, a new story, one we've not heard before."

"How much will you pay for a story?" the Korean grandmother asked teasingly.

None of these children thought such a question strange. Traveling poets often knocked at the Kim gate and asked if the Master would not buy a poem from them. Did not the traveling storytellers at the market and the fairs always demand pay for the good tales they told there? Even their own poet-father received pay for his verses. But of course his pay was in gifts of fat roasted chickens, of bolts of grass linen, or of a new finely sewn collar for his silken coat. These gifts to him were tokens of admiration from friends —even from strangers—for the golden words that flowed from his rabbit-hair brush.

"How much would your story cost, Halmoni?" Ok Cha said, coming close and laying her hand affectionately on the old woman's shoulder.

"Well, I don't know." The Korean grandmother smiled. "Yi and his wife paid a full hundred strings of cash for a story. They really got no story at all though, in the end, it turned out to be worth a great deal of money to them.

"We'll talk about the price some other time," Halmoni continued. "And I'll tell you about this story Old Yi bought at such a great price. Yi was a rich fellow who lived with his wife far out in the country and far up on a hillside. They had many times a hundred strings of cash in their house. So much did they have, indeed, that their brass-bound chests overflowed, and they hid part of their wealth in the great
kimcbee
jars, buried deep in their courtyard.

"Riches do not always bring pleasure, my little ones. There were no sons in that house far up on the hillside, and no grandchildren to bother." Halmoni smiled so that her listeners knew she did not mean the last words just as they sounded. "No, it was as still as the ancestors' tomb under Yi's roof. The old couple often were lonely. Traveling actors or storytellers never knocked at their gate, so far off the road. They were too old to go in their sedan chairs to pay visits or find amusement at the town fairs. Today was like tomorrow, and the evenings were long.

"One morning the Master of that house called Hap, his gatekeeper, to him. 'Go down to the valley,' he commanded, 'and do not stop walking until you have found a good storyteller. Buy from him a fine tale. You can pay him one hundred strings of cash for it!'

"This gatekeeper, Hap, was a dark, ignorant fellow. He himself would not have known a storyteller from a woodcutter. But he loaded the chest containing the cash on a wooden carrying frame, which we call a jiggy. He raised this up on his back. Then he trotted off down the hillside in search of a fine tale to bring back to his master.

"Many hours Hap walked along the path through the valley before he met anyone. Then he came on a farmer, resting by the side of a stream that ran through some rice fields.

"'Have you been in peace, venerable sir?' Hap said, bowing in polite greeting.

"'Yé,
Uncle, and you, have you eaten your honorable meals?' the stranger returned his courtesy, according to custom.

"'Will the Learned Man tell me if he has a story which he will sell? My Master has ordered me to buy a fine tale.'

"Now this stranger was but a countryman himself, a man also without learning. He had no story on his tongue's tip, nor could he remember one. But he had great need of money, and he did not wish to let such a good chance slip by.

"'Yé,
Uncle, I have a story,' he said to the gatekeeper. 'But it will cost a large sum. How much can your Master pay?'

"'Will a hundred strings of cash be enough? That is all I have in this money box.'

The farmer was overjoyed when he heard of this goodly sum, and he nodded his head. He thought hard, for he still could remember no story and he had not the wits to invent one. As he gazed about him in his need, he saw a long-legged stork, picking its way through the rice field. Daintily lifting first one leg and then the other, the great bird moved towards the stream.

"'He comes! Step by step!' The farmer spoke aloud. 'Step by step he comes nearer.' And the stupid gatekeeper, thinking the man was beginning the story, repeated his words. He must know this fine tale by heart so that he could tell it to the Master.

"'He comes! Step by step!' Hap echoed. 'Step by step he comes nearer!'

"At that moment the stork saw a movement in the rice, and he halted to find out just what it was. 'Now he stops to listen! Now he stops to look!' the farmer said with his eyes still on the stork.

"'Now he stops to listen! Now he stops to look!' the gatekeeper chanted.

"The rice plants no longer moved, and the stork bent his neck to hunt for some good morsel, an earthworm or perhaps a snail on the ground. With bent legs and slow steps the bird crept through the field.

"'He bends down! He creeps!' the farmer went on, hoping that the stork would furnish him with a satisfactory tale. And the gatekeeper spoke likewise, reciting each word with great care.

"Then there was a quick movement in the rice, and a fox raised its black nose out of the green. With a leap off the ground the stork spread its broad wings and flew quickly to safety.

"'Ai! Ai!'
cried the farmer. 'He's off! He is fleeing. Soon he will be safe!'

"'He's off. He is fleeing. Soon he will be safe!' his listener cried too.

"'Is that all the story?' Hap asked the stranger when no more words came from his lips.

"'That is all. Who could want more?' the farmer said haughtily, and he loaded Hap's hundred strings of cash on his own 'jiggy.'

"On his way home up the hillside, Hap repeated this story over and over. He was proud that he did not forget one single word. Of course he did not understand it, but then he was a dark, unlearned fellow.

"Old Yi and his wife also thought it a queer tale. They did not understand it, either. The old man told it over aloud night after night, trying to puzzle out its meaning.

"Now in that lonely region, it is not at all strange that one evening a wicked man came to rob this rich aged couple. The robber was young, and it was no trouble to him to climb over the wall. With soft steps the thief was making his way toward the house, when he heard a voice say, 'He comes! Step by step! Step by step he comes nearer.'

"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

D
OG
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.'"