Part 9

When the family of wife, many sons, several daughters, servants, retainers, hangers-on, and what not, saw their master half man and half ox, with horns and hoofs, they were distracted. Each one had his own notion of how to get him back into human form and like his former self. Each one ran all over town and into the adjoining villages to get and call in the mudangs.

These mudangs were the people, mostly women, whose business it was to drive out the imps and bad fairies, such as had, in this case, done the mischief. The kitchen maids stoutly declared that Tokgabi had wrought the change upon their master. They felt quite sure of it; but the men thought that the gods of the mountains were punishing him for his sins. On the other hand, the mudang woman said she would find out and get him back into his human skin, if they paid her enough money.

With drums and dancing and songs, screams, yells, and every sort of noise, the mudangs kept up such a terrible racket that it almost deafened the family. There were several of them called in, and they knew that they would all be well paid.

Meanwhile the doctors also kept on with their awful medicines, besides rubbing, pounding, blowing, and sticking needles into the bull and burning moxa, or little balls of cottony mugwort, on its hide.

Yet not a hoof or horn, not even a hair changed.

The mudangs declared that the imps had got inside the man and they must get them out. One fellow carried a big bottle to trap the imps and cork them in. Another insisted that they would have to use scissors and snip the skin in about a hundred places, thus making small holes to let the evil creatures out. Then they must bottle them up, lest they should get out and overrun the house and infest the whole town.

There seemed not so many chances of getting well as “one hair among nine oxen”; but the wife pleaded that they would put off using the scissors until all other means had failed. She did not want to see her dear husband’s skin made into a colander, or sieve, if it could be helped.

At this point, when the din and the despair were worst and had come to a climax, Old Timber Top appeared. As some of the family had collapsed and lay helpless on the floor, and as all were too tired to ask questions, they at once made way for him. After looking at the patient with a face as wise as an owl’s, Old Timber Top solemnly announced that only one thing could save him and that was a rare and wonderful drug, of which only he knew the secret, but which he could speedily procure. Of course the wife, sons and daughters instantly promised to give up their all, to see their husband and father himself again.

So while Timber Top went out to get the famous medicine, they all fell asleep, tired out, while the ox-man lay over on his side resting his horns and hoofs on the floor bed; for in Korea they do not have bedsteads, that is, beds raised up from the floor.

As for Old Timber Top, when once out on the street, he immediately began saying to himself, over and over again, “Turnips and sticks, sticks and turnips.”

Going to a vegetable shop, he bought a fine large turnip, or turnip-radish, of the kind that grows in Korea, silvery white and about four feet long. He first peeled, then sliced, and finally pounded it into a sauce very fine. Then entering the house in triumph, he woke up the doctors, kicked the servants awake, and announced that the potent drug would soon restore their master. He solemnly bade them all watch and see him do it.

Pulling and hauling all together, five or six fellows were able to get the man-bull on his two hoofs and two feet and then Timber Top put a spoonful of the sauce on the big tongue.

At once a most marvellous change took place!

The horns shortened until they disappeared, the lips thinned, the mouth became smaller. Hoofs, hair, and hide departed into empty air. In the wagging of a dog’s tail, the mighty man of the house had become himself again.

All the doctors, jugglers, and mudangs packed up their imp-bottles and medicines, and with their drums, flutes, bags, boxes and wares slunk away, while the family loaded Old Timber Top with grateful thanks and compliments.

As for the master, he declared Timber Top the greatest physician the world ever knew. He invited him to make the house his permanent home and showered upon him many gifts, with plenty to eat, and white clothes starched as white as snow. The hats with which he presented Timber Top were so big around and had a brim so wide, that he used them when covered with oiled paper covers as umbrellas in rainy weather, but he never went out doors when the wind was blowing, for fear he would be whirled down the street. Besides this, he feared there was still much wood in his head, which might turn into a top and spin round, if he were not careful.

Old Timber Top set up a medicine office, practiced among the nobility and became physician to the king. When he visited the palace, he used a red visiting card, a foot long. He had a plastron, or square of velvet embroidery on his breast. He wore a string of amber beads as big as walnuts over his ears. He soon became fat with a double chin and plump fingers, showing that he reeked with prosperity. He lived to a good old age, his family were made comfortable, his sons and daughters married well, and he had seventeen grandchildren before he died.

Yet all the time, the fairies claimed that they did it all. They made the sticks work one way, and the turnips another, and they still play their tricks on the Koreans, especially those with more or less wood in their heads.

SIR ONE LONG BODY AND MADAM THOUSAND FEET

In the land of Morning Radiance, where the family names have only one syllable, such as Kim, Yi, Pil, Wun, Hap, etc., they wear shoes, but these are not made of black leather. The people neither stand up on wooden clogs as in Japan, nor case their feet in straight soled gaiters, without heels, as in China. The gentlemen put on white socks with tough hide soles, and the ladies don dainty slippers with the pointed toes turned up. Common folks’ sandals are made chiefly of straw and twine and it takes a good deal of cordage to complete a pair.

Now there once lived under an old stone below a persimmon tree a fair young creature named Miss Thousand Feet. She wore lead-colored clothes and had so many toes to take care of that any one who tried to count them soon got tired; so he stopped and called the whole amount a thousand, which was a number as round as herself. She was as proud of each one of her many little feet as a Chinese lady, who has only two of them. Miss Thousand Feet was very modest, however, and if any one stepped on her toes, or touched her, she curled up, first into a ring and then into a ball, so that men, by a pun on her family name, called her “a pill millipede,” for she belonged to the Pil family, one of the most famous in all Korea.

Miss Thousand Feet was very happy living under a damp stone in the cool earth and she played a good deal. But by and by, when she grew up, her parents told her it was time for her to get married. So they looked around, to see if any gentleman in the whole creation was worthy of her, not only to make a suitable husband, but also a good match.

Now in another village lived a rich, fat, young and promising male creature, named Mr. Long Body, of the Wum family. His business was to eat his way through the ground, and pile up little curled heaps of mud on the surface, and at this work he was kept very busy. He had to look out for the birds, for they enjoyed eating folks like him, he was so soft and sweet. Constant exercise in moving through the ground kept his body shining, so that altogether, as earthworms go, he was quite handsome and considered a good catch for Miss Thousand Feet. Furthermore, as he had no feet and she had so many, while his body was long and hers quite short, it was supposed that one would make up where the other lacked and that both would be happy together as husband and wife.

Mr. Long Body, when he heard of the charms of Miss Thousand Feet, was of the same opinion. All his friends were pairing off, the males bringing home their brides to their fathers’ houses and setting up housekeeping. As he had come of age, he also determined to marry.

So he sent letters and opened the business, according to Korean etiquette, through a “go-between,” as the lady who arranges marriages is called. This person goes to see each of the two families, praising to one the beauty and graces of the promised bride and to the other the strength and wealth of the future husband. Indeed, she gives both of them a very good character. Finally the “six proprieties,” or “half dozen rules,” had been completed and the engagement of Mr. Wum and Miss Pil was announced.

What a clatter of gossip was at once heard in both villages! No one ever thought that such a handsome fellow as Mr. Long Body Wum would ever marry into the Pil family. Some jealous folks hinted that Mr. Long Body, if he took a wife with a thousand feet, would never be able to pay his shoemaker. On the other hand, so long as his bride would be content with plain twine shoes all might go well; but for extra occasions, or if his wife were extravagant and wanted lady’s turned up house foot-gear made of red morocco such as only the rich folks wear,—well there would be trouble in the household. How could he keep her in shoes? Other persons, however, who knew that the Pils were famous people, wondered how Mr. Wum ever managed to get such a prize as Miss Pil.

In the other village, the tongues of the gossips ran on in much the same way. What did she see to admire in that fellow without legs? When the honeymoon would be over and it came to making gentleman’s clothes for her husband, had she any skill with the needle? Could she make a long coat and one trouser leg big enough to fit him? And think of the many days of work necessary to cut and sew the garment, to say nothing of weary hours to be spent in washing, starching and giving a gloss to such clothes. The idea! Why, she would have to be nothing but a slave.

As her husband’s semptress, tailor, and laundress she would get no rest. Think of washing, starching, and beating to a fine gloss the one-legged trousers, which Mr. Wum would often have to change; for he lived in the dirt!

Now, Mr. Long Body Wum was so busy with his work of excavating the ground that he had no time to pay attention to the village chatterboxes. Miss Pil, however, couldn’t help hearing what the women and others said about her, and especially the talk concerning the terribly hard duties that awaited her if she took a husband. While Mr. Wum kept digging at the tunnel three yards long, which he was excavating underground, so as to save up and be ready for his wedding, Miss Pil brooded over what the gossips talked about and over those awfully long coats and one-legged trousers she would be obliged to sit up at nights to make, wash, starch and gloss. Already she imagined her arms tired in anticipation of starching and beating on the Korean lustre, without which no gentleman in the Land of Morning Calm ever goes outdoors. If his coat didn’t have that fashionable shine which long beating gives, the women would notice it immediately and pretty soon the men also.

Miss Pil’s broodings night and day over the matter did not help affairs, and finally wore upon her nerves. She refused to prepare her own trousseau, and despite all her friends told her in praise of Mr. Long Body Wum, she decided to write a letter to him, telling him that on account of his long trunk without limbs, and the great labor necessary to make him proper clothing and of starching and glossing it, to say nothing of keeping it in order, she felt unable to hold to the marriage engagement and must break it off.

But before she had dropped the water on the ink stone and begun to rub up the ink, or taken brush-pen and paper in hand, Mr. Long Body had got wind of her complaining and it worried him. Why should he marry one who didn’t want him?

Then, as he thought it over, being a very thrifty and economical bachelor, be began to doubt whether he could buy shoes enough to fit all the feet of his betrothed. He had not looked on her face or figure yet. Indeed it was hardly Korean etiquette that he should—openly at least. So far, he had not seen her tiny feet to count them up, but he suspected that, since she belonged to the Pil family, she must have a thousand feet according to her reputation. When he came to calculate what it would cost him, even in cheap twine sandals, he was startled. When he figured out what ladies’ turned up kids would come to he was so alarmed that he nearly fainted. At the sight of five hundred pairs of shoes, however tiny, his breath almost failed him and he saw himself ruined. What should he do?

And when she took off her foot-gear at night, where should he stow it away? Then, what a noise she would make, if she put on rough-soled shoes, while at her work around the house and yard. It was horrible for a quiet bachelor even to think of the clatter she would make. Already he felt deafness coming on. Should he break off the engagement? Yet how could any one of the Wum family honorably do such a thing? What would the neighbors say? Could he, if prone to breaking his word, get another bride of a family so respectable as that of the Pil?

However he would sleep over it, as there were some days before the wedding. But next morning the matter cleared up, and he was able to crawl into his hole and out of sight with comfort. He sent a letter to Miss Pil, setting forth the facts, and asking for a release from the engagement to marry. The substance of what he wrote was this; that owing to his small fortune he would be unable to buy her all the shoes, and of the kind which a lady of her quality and tastes required. He therefore could not think of asking her to share his poverty, but begged her to secure another husband who could do so.

Now it happened that the letters crossed on the road. Each had a refusal before the ink was dry; so neither could complain.

So there was no wedding, nor any frolic among the young folks, or feasting of relatives, and to this day Miss Pil remains single and Mr. Wum has no wife. They were very severe on the girl. All the gossips say that it served the thousand-footed hussy right. Folks had better look on the good points in a person’s character and not dwell upon his faults and defects. On the other hand, in Mr. Wum’s village, all declare with one voice that bachelors should count up all the expense in getting married. Miss Pil still goes shoeless hiding from light under a stone, and Mr. Wum keeps out of sight underground, for he has nothing to wear.

THE SKY BRIDGE OF BIRDS

No bird is more common in Korea than the magpie. They are numbered by millions. Every day in the year, except the seventh day of the seventh month, the air is full of them. On that date, however, they have a standing engagement every year. They are all expected to be away from streets and houses, for every well-bred magpie is then far up in the sky building a bridge across the River of Stars, called the Milky Way. With their wings for the cables, and their heads to form the floor of the bridge, they make a pathway for lovers on either side of the Silver Stream.

Boys and girls are usually very kind to the magpies, but if a single one be found about the houses, on the roofs, or in the streets on the seventh of August, woe betide it! Every dirty-faced brat throws sticks or stones at the poor creature, for not being about its business of bridge-building across the Starry River. By evening time the magpies return to their usual places, for they are then supposed to have attended to their tasks and built the bridge.

To prove beyond a doubt that the bridge was made and walked over, you have only to look at the bare heads of the magpies at this time. Their feathers have been entirely worn off by the tramping of the crowd of retainers who follow the Prince of Star Land across the bridge to meet his bride.

If it be wet weather on the morning of this day of the Weaver Maiden and the Cattle Prince, the rain-drops are the tears of joy shed by the lovers at their first meeting. If showers fall in the afternoon, they are the tears of sadness at saying farewell, when the prince and princess leave each other. If any thunder is heard, every boy and girl knows that this comes from the rumble of the wagons which carry the baggage of the prince and princess, as they move away, each from the other, homeward.

Now, this is the story which the Korean mothers tell to their children of the Bridge of Birds.

Long, long ago, in the Kingdom of the Stars, a king reigned who had a lovely daughter. Besides being the most beautiful to behold, she was a skilful weaver. There was no good thing to be done in the palace, but she could do it. She was not only highly accomplished, but of sweet temper and very willing. Being a model of all diligence, she was very greatly beloved of her parents and her influence over her father was very great. He would do almost anything to please his darling daughter.

In due time a young and very handsome prince, who lived in Star Land, came to her father’s court and fell in love with the pretty princess. Her parents consenting, the wedding was celebrated with great splendor.

Now that she was a wife and had a home of her own to care for, she became all the more a model of lovely womanhood and an example to all the maidens of Korea forever. Besides showing diligence in the care of clothes and food and in setting her servants a good example of thrift, she thought much of their happiness. Her service to her husband was unremitting. Her chief ambition was to make his life one of constant joy.

But the prince, instead of following his bride’s good example, and of appreciating what his beautiful and unselfish bride was doing for his happiness, gave himself up to waste and extravagance. He became lazy and dissipated. Neglecting his duties, he wasted his own fortune and his wife’s dowry. He sold all his oxen and calves to get money only to lose it in gambling. He borrowed many and long ropes of coin from any one who would lend him the brass and iron money. Finally he was so scandalously poor, being on his last string of cash, that he was in danger of being degraded from his rank as prince, and of having his name spoken with contempt.

The King of the Stars, having seen his son-in-law on the downward way, had more than once threatened to disinherit, or banish him, especially after the prince had parted with his cattle. Yet when his daughter, the young wife, interceded and begged pardon for her husband, the king relented, paid his son-in-law’s debts and gave him another chance to do better. When, however, the worthless fellow fell back into his old ways, and grew worse and worse, the king resolved to separate the pair, one from the other. He banished the prince, far, far away, six months’ distance from the north side of the River of Heaven, and exiled the princess a half year’s measure of space from the south side of the Starry Stream.

Although the king in his wrath had hardened his heart, even against his own beloved child, and had driven her from court and palace, because of her worthless husband, yet, as a signal proof of his compassion, he ordained that on one night of the year, on the seventh night of the seventh moon, they might meet for a few hours.

The young people parted and took their sad journey to the edge of the starry heavens, but they loved each other so dearly that, as soon as they arrived at their place of banishment, they turned round to meet each other on August 7th.

So when the day came, after six months’ weary journeying, they had reached the edge of the Starry River, and there they stood, catching glimpses and waving their hands, but unable to get closer to each other. There one may see them on summer nights shining on opposite sides of the broad Stream of Stars, loving each other but unable to cross.

Feeling that the great gulf of space could not be spanned, the loving couple burst into tears. The flood from their eyes, making the river overflow, deluged the earth below, threatening to float everything, houses, people, animals away. What could be done?

The four-footed creatures, fish and fowls, held a convention, but it was agreed that only those birds with strong wings and able to fly high could do anything. So the magpies, with many flattering speeches, were commended to the enterprise.

When these noisy and chattering creatures, that are nevertheless so kind and friendly to the sparrows, heard of the lovers’ troubles aloft, they resolved to help the sorrowing pair over the River of Stars. Out of their big, ugly nests they flew gladly to the convention that voted to build the bridge. Sending out word all over the world, millions of magpies assembled in the air. Under the direction of their wisest chiefs, they began their work of making, with a mass of wings, a flying bridge that would reach from shore to shore of the Starry Stream. First, they put their heads together to furnish a floor, and, so closely, that the bridge looked as if it were paved with white granite. Then with their pinions they held up the great arch and highway, over which the prince crossed to his bride with all his baggage and train of followers. The tables were soon spread and the two royal lovers enjoyed a feast, with many tender words and caresses.