Faithful Mo

Prince Ha had a slave who owned land of his own and lived in Yang-ju county. This man had a daughter so beautiful that no words could describe her, and he called her Mo, which means “Nobody.”

An Yun was a well-known scholar, a man respected for his learning. He saw Mo, fell in love with her and took her as his wife.

When Prince Ha heard of it, he was furious. “How dare a slave marry into a noble family?” he said. He had Mo seized and brought back to his house, meaning to marry her to one of his own bondsmen instead.

Mo wept bitterly when she learned of this, but she did not know what to do. At last she climbed over the wall, escaped and made her way to An. He was overjoyed to see her, but he was afraid of the old prince and did not know what to do either. Together the two of them swore that they would sooner die than be parted.

When Prince Ha found out, he sent his men to seize her and carry her off once more. After that, nothing was heard of her, until one day Mo was found dead in a room. The narrator links her death to the vow the couple had made.

For months An was lost in grief. Then one night he was walking home from the Confucian Temple over the ridge of Camel Mountain. It was early autumn, and the wooded hilltops shimmered in the moonlight. The whole world had sunk quietly to rest, and there was no one else on the road. An was thinking longingly of Mo and, in a broken voice, reciting love poems in her memory, when he heard a soft footstep among the pines. He looked carefully, and there stood Mo.

An knew she had been dead a long time, so he must have known this was her spirit. But he was so lost in thoughts of her that he never doubted for a moment. He ran to her and caught her hand. “How did you come here?” he said. And she vanished.

An gave a great cry and burst into tears. He fell ill. He tried to eat, but his grief was so heavy that he could not swallow, and a little later he died of a broken heart.

The writer of this tale heard it from two people who knew An. One was Kim Champan, his cousin, the writer’s close friend and the same age as he. The other was Yu Hyo-jang, An’s nephew by marriage, who told it many times. “She was faithful unto death,” Yu would say. “Even for a lady brought up among scholars and taught all the rules of proper conduct, it is hard to give up one’s life. But Mo was a slave, the lowest of the low, who was never taught any of those things. Out of love for her husband, she stayed true to the end and gave up her life without a stain. Among all the faithful people of olden times, was there ever anyone better than Mo?”

About this story

“Faithful Mo” is chapter XLVI of James Scarth Gale’s Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts and Fairies (1913), and unlike most of the book it comes from Yi Ryuk, a scholar of the fifteenth century who, Gale writes, held many offices and was known for his writing. Yi Ryuk tells it as a true account, naming the friend and the relative who told it to him.

The story depicts a powerful man enforcing a barrier of inherited status against an enslaved woman’s choice of husband. Its closing praise reflects the values of the source’s speakers; their description of enslaved people as inferior is prejudice, not an assessment this page endorses. This retelling keeps Mo’s death but omits any method.

Read the original: Korean Folk Tales (Project Gutenberg)

For older readers with guided discussion. Includes enslavement, forced separation, implied suicide and death after bereavement; it should not be presented as a model of how to prove love.

Read the praise critically

Mo acts to choose her own marriage and escapes after Prince Ha imprisons her. Those actions show what she wants before the narrator turns her death into proof of fidelity. The closing speech praises her by contrasting her with educated women, but that comparison repeats the same hierarchy that made her vulnerable. A reader can recognise her courage while rejecting both the claim that status determines worth and the idea that dying proves love.

Put responsibility back in the scene

Choose the moment when Mo is seized for the second time. Identify who has the power to prevent the tragedy. Write an alternative response for that person which respects Mo’s choice and keeps her alive. Explain how it changes the story’s focus from praise after suffering to responsibility before it.

Think about it

• Why was Prince Ha so angry about Mo’s marriage?
• What promise did Mo and An make to each other?
• How does the storyteller’s praise draw attention away from Prince Ha’s abuse of power?

You may also like

• Cursed by the Snake — another tale about Prince Ha’s family
• Charan — a Korean love story that crosses lines of rank
• A Visit from the Shades — another meeting with spirits of the dead