Korea
Explore Korean stories of animals, spirits, families, lovers and public officials. The versions here include historical English retellings whose language and judgments need context; consult the source note and the audience guidance on the individual page.
72 stories are in this region right now.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Mirror That Made Trouble
A miller from the countryside visits Seoul for the first time and buys a round metal disc with a man inside, never guessing what it will do to his family.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Old Man Who Became a Fish
A guest bursts into tears at the sight of skate soup and explains how his feverish father, nearly a hundred years old, begged to be carried to the river.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Man Who Became a Pig
A man travels from the far countryside to ask a minister’s advice, because his father, nearly a hundred, shut himself in for a nap and turned into a pig.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Man Who Lost His Legs
A merchant buying seaweed on Quelpart meets a legless old man who tells how his shipwrecked crew was trapped in the castle of a man-eating giant.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Man on the Road
Trapped by an invading army in 1636, a crowd of refugees sits down beside a calm stranger and a strip of cotton cloth as the horsemen thunder past them.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Magic Peach
At a feast on the Island of Gems, a young prince eats a peach of long life, and the palace maid kneeling beside him seems to grow lovelier every moment.
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.