A Visit from the Shades

Long ago there was a government minister who, at the time of this story, served as Palace Secretary. One morning he was getting ready to go to the palace, already dressed in his ceremonial robes. It was still early, and as he leaned on his armrest for a moment, he fell asleep.

He dreamed that he was riding on his way to the palace. As he crossed the bridge at the entrance to East Palace Street, he saw his mother coming toward him on foot. He quickly got down, bowed and said, “Mother, why are you walking, instead of riding in a chair?”

“I have left the world already,” she said. “Where I am now, things are not as they are where you are, and so I walk.”

“Where are you going?” asked the secretary.

“One of our servants lives at Yong-san,” she said. “They are holding a ceremony with a shaman there right now, and I am going to share in the offerings.”

“But we hold so many memorial days for you at home,” said the secretary, “at each of the four seasons, and on the first and fifteenth of every month. Why go to a servant’s house and not to mine?”

“Your offerings mean nothing to me,” his mother replied. “I like the shaman’s prayers. Without a medium, we spirits get no satisfaction. I’m in a hurry and cannot wait any longer.” She said goodbye, and she was gone.

The secretary woke with a start, but he felt sure that what he had seen had truly happened. He called a servant and told him to hurry to a certain house at Yong-san and tell a certain servant there to come that night without fail. “Go quickly,” he said, “so that you are back before I leave for the palace.” Then he sat down to think it over.

Soon the servant was back. It was not yet full daylight, and because it was cold, he did not go straight in but stopped in the kitchen to warm his hands at the fire. Another servant there asked him, “Have you been drinking?”

“They’re holding a large ceremony led by a shaman at Yong-san,” he said. “While the mutang, the shaman, was performing, she said the spirit inside her was our master’s mother. When I came in, she called out my name and said, ‘This is a servant from our house.’ Then she called me over and gave me a big cup of wine. And she said, ‘On my way here I met my son going into the palace.’”

From the room where he was waiting, the secretary overheard this talk, and he broke down and wept. He called the servant in and questioned him further, and he became more certain than ever that his mother’s spirit had gone that morning to share in the koot, the shamanic ceremony.

Then he sent for the mutang and, on behalf of his mother’s spirit, gave her a great offering. And from that time on, he made offerings to his mother four times a year, as each season came round.

About this tale

“A Visit from the Shades” is chapter XXXII of Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts and Fairies (1913), James Scarth Gale’s translation of stories by Im Bang and Yi Ryuk. This one is by Im Bang. A “shade” is an old word for a ghost.

Gale begins the chapter with a note on Choi Yu-won, a Chief Justice of the early 1600s, saying that the story of meeting his mother’s ghost is reported to be about this man; the story itself names no one. The mutang, or shaman, and the koot ceremony she leads were a living part of Korean belief in Im Bang’s day.

Read the original: Korean Folk Tales (Project Gutenberg)

Best for ages 9–12 — a quiet ghost story about bereavement, a son’s dream and his response to a servant’s account.

Why the second account matters

The secretary first hears his mother in a dream. Later he overhears a servant speaking in the kitchen, apparently without knowing his master is listening. That arrangement makes the matching details persuasive to the secretary: the mother’s journey and the meeting with her son appear in both accounts. It is a storytelling method for building conviction, not independent proof of contact with the dead. His change of ritual also shows a gap between what he assumes honours his mother and what her dream-voice asks for.

Compare the accounts

Draw two speech bubbles, one for the dream and one for the servant. Put the matching details between them. Then write what the secretary changes and explain why the match matters to him.

Questions to ask

• Why was the secretary’s mother walking?
• Which details in the servant’s account convinced the secretary that the dream meant something?
• What did the secretary change after that morning?

Related stories

• Hong’s Experiences in Hades — another Korean tale about the world of the dead
• The Honest Witch — a Korean tale about a mutang
• Faithful Mo — a spirit seen on a moonlit road