Fancha and the Magpie

Griffis begins this tale with an imagined Manchu court and an emperor anxious about his ancestry. His comic opening is a literary frame, not a reliable history of Manchu society. In it, the emperor’s people wear their hair in long braids, with the fronts of their heads shaved.

They learned to ride almost as soon as they could walk, and in time they became such bold horsemen and warriors that they swept down in their thousands, like clouds, from their mountain homeland into warmer and richer lands. With their mighty bows, spears and swords they won so many victories that other tribes joined them, and at last they conquered great China and invaded Korea.

In the storyteller’s contrast, the conquerors remember a simpler life of riding, tending animals and gathering food. At the splendid court, that remembered life now embarrasses people who want their family histories to sound grand.

The court imagines elegant Chinese gentlemen mocking their conquerors. The emperor’s circle responds by adopting costly perfumes, jade, tea, porcelain and silk, as though possessions could settle the question of who deserved respect.

Now, sitting on thrones in satin robes and velvet shoes, they want an impressive account of where they came from. They fear that ordinary ancestors would weaken their authority. This is the court’s prejudice: people who live in tents or tend horses are not worth less than people in palaces.

“What can we do to make the Chinese and Koreans think we are somebody?” the Emperor asked his wise men.

In the council it was the custom for the younger men to speak first and the oldest and wisest to speak last. They talked it over for a long time. At last an old graybeard gave his answer. He wore a pair of horn-rimmed green spectacles, bigger than anyone else’s, which were supposed to let him see farther into the past and the future, for the bigger a man’s spectacles, the more learned he was thought to be. He cultivated a solemn expression, and behind his back people called him Green Lamps.

In this imagined court, Green Lamps thought it proper to remove his spectacles before addressing the emperor, so he took them off and got down on his knees. Then he performed the kowtow, knocking his forehead on the floor nine times, which nearly broke his stiff old bones. Then he spoke to the Emperor, who was called the Son of Heaven.

“Sire, the common people will not respect us unless we can show that our ancestors long ago were not born like ordinary folk, but came down from heaven. There is an old woman, nearly a hundred and seventeen years old, who tells the children about our ancestors who dropped from the sky. Shall I call her in?”

“What is her name?” asked the Emperor.

“They call her Mrs. Crinkles, Son of Heaven.”

“Bring her before me at once,” said the Emperor, waving his lotus-bud scepter.

Now Green Lamps was a sly old fox. He wanted to rise even higher in the Emperor’s favor and had expected this, so he had the old woman waiting in another room of the palace. He went and fetched her. She was ready to tell the story that had kept children spellbound for years, the same story her grandmother used to tell around the fire on winter nights while the wind howled and the snow covered the land. Mrs. Crinkles had once been a rosy girl, but now she was the oldest Manchu living in Peking.

The young women called her Mrs. Crinkles because her face was so wrinkled and puckered. One time, while she was telling her story, a mischievous girl began counting her wrinkles, but she stopped at seventy-four, in case there was one for every year, because, in this telling, the girl thought 117 an unlucky number.

In hobbled Mrs. Crinkles. She was already bent so low with age that when she bowed lower still, the court chamberlain declared that it was better than a kowtow and excused her from the nine bows. Everyone feared that if she got down on the floor, she might never get up again. So she was allowed to sit and begin.

She did not speak in polished Chinese but in plain Manchu. Yet she told her tale so well, with such life and fine gestures, that every eye sparkled and the Emperor’s face, which they called the Dragon Countenance, beamed with delight. This was her story:

Beyond the Ever White Mountains, which divide Korea from Manchuria, lies the Land of Lakes. In one of those lakes, as in a mirror, the glorious blue sky and the snow-covered mountains are reflected, and at night, when the stars come out, its still surface is spangled with jewels. The fame of this crystal-clear lake and the lovely colors of its sunrises and sunsets reached all the way to heaven. Three beautiful maidens who lived in the heavenly palaces longed to come down, bathe in its water and live on its shores.

The Lord of Heaven gave them permission, and when they came down to earth, they were as happy as fairies could be. They never tired of seeing their lovely faces in the mirror of the lake. When they rose early to watch the golden sun color the clouds and water, their songs answered one another like music. When the breeze rippled the water, they clapped their hands for joy, and at bedtime the little waves lapping on the shore sang them to sleep.

They came to love that beautiful country so much that in time they forgot their old home and never wished to go back to the sky. They were kind to every living thing, and especially to the magpies, which were plentiful and tame. The maidens made pets of them and chose the magpie as their sacred bird.

The three sisters loved to gaze into the blue sky above and to bathe in the blue water below, and they often went swimming in the lake. They left their robes on the pebbly beach, and the youngest sister was always the last to step into the water. One day they noticed a magpie high above them that seemed to be signaling, as though it had a message. As it came closer, they saw that it carried a blood-red fruit in its beak. It flew down near their clothes on the beach, hovered for a moment and then dropped the red fruit onto the youngest sister’s robe.

The sisters hurried out of the water and sat down to talk about this wonderful thing. The magpie circled their heads and flew away, and they agreed that the gift of their sacred bird was a happy sign that something good was coming. They shared the fruit, which tasted delicious, and enjoyed it as a message from heaven.

From this heavenly token, brought by the sacred magpie, the youngest maiden had a son. They named the baby Golden Family Stem, for they were sure he would grow up to found a line of kings, who would take the name Great Bright from the shining lake where he was born.

His young mother brought him up to believe that he was no ordinary mortal but heaven-born, and so he must always act nobly. When he grew up, he was to be a prince of peace, healing people’s quarrels and bringing happiness and prosperity to them and to the whole world.

So he grew up in the shadow of the great mountains, which were so high they seemed to touch the sky. Nothing pleased him more than watching the play of light and shadow on the mountainsides and in the valleys, and the reflections on the face of the lake. To him they were like the smile of the Great Guardian Spirit.

But by and by his dear mother died, and he found himself an orphan with no one near him, for the other two maidens had long since gone away, he did not know where.

Left alone, he decided not to stay in the mountains. He took the name Fancha, or Heaven-born, and resolved to go out into the world and lead people. He built a boat, and when it was finished, he floated down the stream that flowed out of the lake and into a river. He came ashore at a place where three tribes were all at war with one another. They were rough fellows, used to brawling, who had no respect for anyone no better than themselves.

But when they saw this noble youth, alone and unarmed, step fearlessly over the side of his boat and walk toward them in friendship, they were deeply impressed by his fine looks and his courage. When he told them the story of his birth, and how his mother had called him her heaven-born son, they all shouted, “Our chief!” and put on him the signs of lordship.

The heaven-born youth became a great leader. At the head of his brave warriors he always won, but he never started a war. Other tribes flocked to his banner, and in time he built a city. He married a princess of the chief tribe, the daughter of a great chieftain, and several sons were born to them.

But the wars went on, for the habit of fighting was too old to be given up all at once. In one battle he and all his sons were killed except one, who was also named Fancha. The enemy chased this young Fancha a long way across the open plain, hoping to catch him before he could reach the forest and hide.

When Fancha reached a dense, dark wood, a rescuer came to him in the shape of the sacred magpie. It landed on his head, and Fancha knew at once that it was a sign of safety sent from heaven.

When his pursuers rushed into the forest and began peering among the trees for his hiding place, he stood as still as a post. Seeing the bird perched on him, they thought he was a dead stump or a splintered tree struck by lightning, and they ran straight past. By the time they gave up the hunt, Fancha had escaped to safety.

“The rest of the story Your Majesty knows,” said the old woman, “for Fancha was your ancestor seventeen generations back.”

The great Emperor of all China was deeply moved. He loaded Mrs. Crinkles with presents and honors and created a new post for her, Chief Storyteller to the imperial children, and he made sure she would be comfortable for the rest of her life. With a vermilion brush he wrote an order in his own hand that when she “rose to the skies” she should have a gilded sandalwood coffin, a state funeral, a marble tablet over her grave and honors after her death.

As for old Green Lamps, he was promoted one rank, given the honor of wearing a jade button on his cap and allowed to ride in his palanquin closer to the palace door than any other official except the prime minister.

About this story

“Fancha and the Magpie” is the seventh tale in William Elliot Griffis’s Korean Fairy Tales. It is a story inside a story: a Manchu emperor wants his family to have heavenly ancestors, and a 117-year-old storyteller called Mrs. Crinkles supplies the legend of three sky maidens, a magpie and a red fruit.

Griffis tells the frame with a wink, poking fun at proud rulers and at the scheming adviser Green Lamps, while the legend at its heart honors the magpie as a sacred bird. His frame also includes remarks about Manchus and Chinese typical of an American writer of his time; this retelling keeps the events while distinguishing the court’s status anxiety from factual claims about whole peoples.

Read the original: Korean Fairy Tales (Project Gutenberg)

Suggested for ages 9–12 with an adult: a royal origin legend involving warfare, family deaths and a young survivor pursued by enemies.

Who gains from the story?

Mrs. Crinkles supplies two kinds of authority: heavenly birth for the founder and a miraculous escape for his surviving son, also named Fancha. Meanwhile, the frame has already shown why the emperor wants such a tale. His reward proves that he likes her account; it does not prove the genealogy.

The magpie connects the generations through two very different acts: delivering the fruit and hiding a fugitive in plain sight. The second rescue depends on the bird looking ordinary enough that the pursuers overlook the person beneath it.

Read the court’s reaction

Make three columns for the emperor, Green Lamps and Mrs. Crinkles. Record what each wants before the telling and receives afterward. Then compare the founder’s peaceful arrival among quarrelling tribes with the warfare that kills him. Does the legend fulfil his mother’s hopes completely?

Questions to ask

• Why did the Emperor want a story about heavenly ancestors?
• How did the magpie save young Fancha?
• Who do you think got the better reward, Mrs. Crinkles or Green Lamps?

Related stories

• The Propitious Magpie — another Korean tale of a lucky magpie
• East Light and the Bridge of Fishes — a founding legend from the same book
• Prince Sandalwood, the Father of Korea — another ruler born from heaven