Tales of a Korean Grandmother (13 page)

THE
MOLE
AND
THE
MIRYEK

H
ALMONI
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

A
S 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 longed 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.

"Well, this priest knew the story of the King's Seventh Daughter. He feared that her angry father might harm the poor child if it were known she had been saved. So he hid her in the temple. He fed her and clothed her and made her days happy.

"'Who am I, Holy One?' the princess asked her protector when she was old enough to wonder about her mother and father.

"'You are a daughter of the forest, my little one,' the kind priest replied. 'Your father was the Spirit of the Bamboo, and your mother dwelt in the Odong Tree.' So the girl always made her bows to the bamboo and the odong, just as though they were human.

"As the years went by, the King's seventh daughter grew up safe and sound there in the temple. She did not learn the truth about her royal birth until one day a
mudang
came to seek out the priest.

"'The good Queen is ill,' this
mudang
said. 'She is very ill. And she will die unless her lost daughter is found. I believe you can help me bring her to the Queen's chamber.'

"How that
mudang
knew where the girl had been hidden, I cannot say, but then those spirit doctors know most of the secrets of the universe.

Yong Tu missed his good games out in the courtyard. He was just learning to kick the shuttlecock with the side of his foot.

"The King will be angry that his command to kill his seventh daughter was not obeyed. She will be in great danger,' the good priest objected.

"'Neither the girl nor her protector need have any fears,' the
mudang
declared, it is the King himself who seeks the lost one to save his wife's life.'

"Indeed, there was only rejoicing when the King's seventh daughter appeared at the court. And the Queen did not die. But neither did she grow strong and well.

"'There is a certain medicine in faraway India,' the
mudang
said to the King. 'Only one of the Queen's daughters can get it for her, and only when that has been done, will the evil spirits depart at last from her royal body.'

"Now India lies far beyond the broad plains and the high mountains of China. There were ten thousand chances against a traveler's safely going there and safely returning. The six older daughters all flatly refused to attempt the perilous journey. But the good seventh daughter, who had been reared by the priest, consented to go.

"Over the broad plains, across the deep rivers, and beyond the high mountains she traveled to seek the good medicine for her mother. Then over the high mountains, across the deep rivers, and across the broad plains she journeyed back again. Two long years it took her, but at last the medicine was brought and the good Queen was cured.

"'How wise was the
mudang!'
all the courtiers cried. 'Had she not found the King's seventh daughter for us, our good Queen would have died.'

"'How good is the King's seventh daughter!' the
mu-dangs
said among themselves. 'Had she not taken her long and dangerous journey to bring back the medicine, our cure would not have worked.' That is why the
mudangs
made the King's seventh daughter their own guardian spirit. Even today, my treasures, they call on her name in their songs that drive out the demons."

"But Halmoni," Ok Cha asked, "how could the King's seventh daughter ever have believed that her father was a bamboo and her mother an odong tree?"

"Why should her parents not have been spirits, Jade Child? And why not spirits that lived in the bamboo and the odong tree? Even today when a man mourns his dead father, he always carries a staff made of bamboo. When it is his mother who has ridden the dragon to the Distant Shore, he uses a staff made of odong wood. These customs our men follow may well have come down to us from this very same tale of the King's seventh daughter."