Reading traditional Korean folk tales for fun and reading them again in English

Let’s read traditional Korean folk tales in Korean and English!

The traditional folk tale is a genre widely read and beloved regardless of the era.

Transmitted from mouth to mouth over a long period, traditional Korean folk tales reflect the everyday lives, customs, joys and sorrows, and humor and courage of Koreans in the olden days. They are invaluable stories that can be enjoyed by people in distant lands and those who have come from afar and live in South Korea as well. - Kim Myung-Hwan (professor, Department of English Language and Literature, Seoul National University) -

As in the recommendation by Professor Kim Myung-Hwan at Seoul National University, reading old tales holds a special value. Publishing traditional Korean folk tales, which are thus meaningful, in both Korean and English, this series will reward children with both the joy of reading old stories and an opportunity to study English. Furthermore, the series has been planned so that it can be enjoyed by Korean children overseas, children from multicultural families in South Korea, and children around the globe as well. We hope that it will be used also as a good guide for naturally introducing Korean culture to foreign friends abroad as they are told traditional folk tales from Korea.

An Introduction to the Series

Out of the countless tales that are widely known to many Korean readers, 23 especially colorful and entertaining ones have been selected and edited into 12 volumes. Familiar to Korean children, stories such as “Yeonorang and Seonyeo,” “The Headstone Goes to Court,” “The King has Donkey’s Ears,” and “Kongji and Patji” will not only be fun to read in the original Korean but also heighten youngsters’ understanding as they read the English translations. In addition, children who know similar traditional folk tales from other countries can make comparisons, thus being provided with a fascinating approach to these works.

Table of Contents

01 “Pouch of Songs”

There once lived in a village an elderly man with a large swelling on his neck. Accordingly, everyone including even children called him the Old Lump. Exasperated, the elder pondered on ways to get rid of the bulbous flesh whenever he touched it. One day, he went to the mountain with an A-frame to cut wood. However, the sun set even before he came down. In need of a shelter, the old man found and entered an empty hut, where he started to sing to overcome fear. Charmed by his performance, a group of goblins bought the big lump from the elder at a high price, deceived into thinking that it was the very source of all his songs. After learning of the miraculous incident, a greedy old man in the neighboring village with a similar bump, too, set out for the hut in the hopes of obtaining treasure in place of his own lump of flesh.

02“Cowherd and Weaver Girl”

The ruler of heaven had a daughter. Because she was pretty, kindhearted, and especially talented at weaving cloth, the princess was called the Weaver Girl. She reached a marriageable age so that the monarch sent out envoys, even to the distant kingdom of stars, in search of a good son-in-law. In the process, the Cowherd, a young man adept at tending cows, was found and therefore wedded to the celestial princess, after which the couple lived happily. However, the heavenly king was dissatisfied with his son-in-law because the young man would trample all over the flower gardens in the celestial palace with his cow and but idle away with his wife, who in fact had to weave cloth. One day, the ruler bade the couple work, but they only made merry, riding the Cowherd’s animal. Seeing this, the king flew into a fury and ordered them to live apart, with the Cowherd in the east and the Weaver Girl in the west. He allowed the couple to look at each other only once every year, on the night of the seventh day of the seventh month (July), with the wide Milky Way still separating them. Finally gazing at each other on the promised night, the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl endlessly shed tears, which fell as torrential rain on the human world, thus leading to floods everywhere. After pondering on the crisis, the beasts of Earth gathered to help the sorrowful couple.