Korean Folk Tales
Tigers, rabbits, spirits, magistrates and lovers facing unequal power appear in these Korean tales. English sources include H. N. Allen’s Korean Tales, James Scarth Gale’s Korean Folk Tales and William Elliot Griffis’s Korean Fairy Tales.
Their historical language and commentary sometimes reflect the translator’s assumptions. Source notes separate those judgments from the narrative, while individual audience guidance identifies stories involving captivity, violence, sacrifice or other mature themes.
72 stories are in this collection right now.
Browse by region: Korea.
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 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
All Ages
The Great Stone Fire Eater
A hungry Fire Spirit and the South Wind burn down the king’s new palace in Seoul, and the king’s wise men try a dragon, a pond and a stone beast to stop him.
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
All Ages
The Fortunes of Yoo
Locked in the palace overnight, a forgotten country scholar climbs a broken wall into a moonlit garden and meets a stranger who asks about the Book of Changes.
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.
Korean Folk Tales
The Boxed-up Governor
A pompous governor who calls dancing girls goblins falls for a shy woman at his gate, never suspecting she is a dancing girl sent by the Mayor to trick him.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
Ten Thousand Devils
Kept for New Year by Prince Han, a poor and awkward relative reveals that he must call the roll of every evil spirit in Korea, and holds it in the guest hall.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Awful Little Goblin
An uninvited, silent boy appears at a Seoul nobleman's feast. When the guests try to force him out, even ten strong men cannot move him.
Korean Folk Tales
Ta-Hong
An old minister calmly tells a young secretary that he will die tomorrow, then shares the secret story of the dancing girl who once vowed to wait for him.