Ages 9-12
Stories suggested for ages 9–12, with longer journeys, competing motives and difficult choices. Some contain frightening scenes or violence described in the page’s guidance. These age suggestions support selection and discussion; they do not make every traditional story equally suitable for every reader.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Magic Invasion of Seoul
Dozing on a ferry across the Han River, a gentleman dreams that the God of War marks his palm and orders him to stop seven loaded horses bound for Seoul.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Literary Man of Imsil
An Imsil scholar uses invisible guards to force payment of a wine bet, then uses the same strange authority to protect a town and rescue a girl's soul.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The King of Yom-na (Hell)
Spirit soldiers carry off a sick scholar to the judgment hall of the underworld, only for the King there to find that they have arrested the wrong man.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The King of the Flowers
To warn a pleasure-loving king, the great scholar Sul Chong tells of a royal peony who forgets his garden kingdom for the charms of a spicy cinnamon rose.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The King of the Sparrows
A kind man mends the broken leg of a young sparrow, and the grateful bird flies off to tell the Sparrow King, who sends back a seed packed with treasure.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Ill-Fated Priest
A giant priest beats a scholar and all his servants by a river, until a thin archer on a bony pony rides up and decides it is time someone stopped him.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Home of the Fairies
After his servant and horse die in a mountain storm, a young scholar is guided to a marble palace where the king of the immortals has been expecting him.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Honest Witch
A magistrate who has ordered every shaman in his county put to death meets one riding calmly toward him, and she offers to prove that honest ones exist.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Geomancer
A hungry geomancer repays a mourner’s bowl of porridge with a perfect grave site, warning him that in ten years he must send for him in Seoul.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Grateful Ghost
Riding to the state examination, a scholar hears sneezing from the roots of a roadside vine and finds a skull, and that night its spirit visits him in a dream.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Brave Magistrate
A soldier with no powerful friends takes the post a hundred men refused, in a county where every magistrate dies within ten days of a foul-smelling goblin.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Fearless Captain
A soldier who scoffs at fear sits calmly as lightning rolls through his house, then moves into a haunted office where three hungry devils hop toward him.