Hong Kil-tong

Long ago in Korea there lived a nobleman of high rank and famous family named Hong, whose title was Ye Cho Pansa. He had two sons by his wife and one by a concubine, a secondary wife of low rank. This third son was remarkable from his birth to his death, and this is his story.

When Hong Pansa had only his first two sons, he dreamed one night that he heard thunder, and looking up, he saw a huge dragon coming into his room, so enormous that the room could hardly hold it. The dream woke him, and he knew at once that it was a good sign, promising a blessing. He hoped the blessing would be another son and went to tell his wife the good news, but she would not see him, because she was offended that he had taken a dancing girl as a concubine. The great man went sadly away.

Before the year was out, a wonderfully beautiful son was born to one of his concubines. His wife was annoyed, and so, in a way, was Hong himself, for he wished this boy had the status that would allow him to hold office. The child was named Kil Tong, or Hong Kil Tong. He grew fast and became more handsome every day. He learned quickly and amazed everyone with his abilities.

But as he grew, he rebelled against being placed among the servants and against not being allowed to call his father “Father.” The other children laughed and jeered at him and made his life miserable. He refused to study the duties children owe their parents any more. He overturned his desk at school and declared that he was going to be a soldier.

One bright moonlit night Hong Pansa saw his son in the courtyard practicing the arts of war and asked him what it meant. Kil Tong answered that he was training himself to become a man whom people would respect and fear. Heaven, he said, had made all things for the use of anyone able to use them, and the laws of men were only made to help a few who could not otherwise get their way. He would not submit to such unfairness. He would become a great man in spite of his hard lot.

“This is a most remarkable boy,” Hong Pansa thought. “What a pity he is not my lawful son, to bring honor to my name. As it is, I fear he will bring me serious trouble.” He told the boy to go to bed, but Kil Tong said it was no use: if he lay down, he would think of his troubles until his tears washed sleep away and made him get up again.

Hong Pansa’s wife and his other concubine, the dancing girl, saw how much their lord thought of Kil Tong, and they came to hate the boy and began to plot to get rid of him. They called in some ritual practitioners, whom Allen calls “mootang,” and told them that their happiness was spoiled by this son of a rival and could only be restored by his death. The women in the plot laughed. “Never mind,” they said. “There is an old woman who lives by the east gate. Get her to turn the father against the boy. She can do it, and then he will deal with his son.”

The old woman came. Hong Pansa was in the women’s quarters at the time, praising his wonderful boy, much to their annoyance. A visitor was announced, and the old woman bowed low outside. When Hong Pansa asked her business, she said she had heard of his wonderful son and had come to see him and tell his fortune.

Kil Tong was called. When the old woman saw him, she bowed and said, “Send everyone out.” Then she announced, “This boy will be a very great man. If not a king, he will be greater than the king, and he will avenge his early wrongs by killing his whole family.”

His father told her to stop and ordered her to tell no one. He sent Kil Tong straight to a strong room and had him locked in. The boy was very unhappy, but his father let him have books, so he settled down to hard study and learned the Chinese works on astronomy. He was not allowed to see his mother, and his father was too afraid to come near him. But Kil Tong made up his mind that as soon as he could get out, he would go to some faraway country where nobody knew him and show his true power.

Meanwhile the wicked concubine kept Hong Pansa in a constant state of alarm. Over and over she reminded him how dangerous it would be to be father to such a man as Kil Tong was destined to become. The boy’s power would bring about his downfall and disgrace the family, she said, and if that did not happen, he would surely kill them all. Either way, it was the father’s duty to put the boy out of the way. At last Hong Pansa was persuaded and sent for assassins to kill his son.

But a spirit struck the father with sickness, and he told the men to wait. No medicine could cure him. The concubine called in the mootang, who beat their drums and danced about the room, ordering the spirit to leave, but it would not obey. At last, prompted by the concubine, they declared that Kil Tong was the cause of the illness and that when he died the spirit would stop troubling the father.

So the assassins were sent for a second time, and they came with their swords, guided by the old woman from the east gate. While they were planning his death, Kil Tong sat in the dark, thinking about the unjust laws that let sons be born to concubines but denied them the rights other men enjoyed. Then he heard a crow caw three times and fly away. “That means harm is coming to me,” he thought. Just then the window was flung open and in climbed the assassins.

They rushed at the boy, but he was not there. In their fury they wounded each other and killed the old woman who had guided them. To their astonishment, the room had vanished, and they found themselves surrounded by high mountains. A mighty storm arose, and rocks flew through the air. There was no escape, and they were about to give up in terror when they heard music, and a boy came riding by on a donkey, playing a flute. He took away their weapons and showed them that he was Kil Tong. When they begged for their lives, he promised not to kill them, but only if they swore never to try to kill anyone. He would know, he said, if they broke their promise, and then he would kill them on the spot.

That night Kil Tong went to see his father, who thought he was a ghost and was terrified. Kil Tong gave him a medicine that cured him at once. Then he sent for his mother, said goodbye to her and set out for an unknown country. His father was glad the boy had escaped and stopped caring for the wicked concubine. But she and her mistress were furious and tried in vain to think of a way to carry out their plans.

Free at last, Kil Tong traveled south and climbed into the lonely mountains. There were many tigers there, but he was not afraid of them, and they seemed to leave him alone. After many days he found himself high on a bare peak wrapped in clouds, and he enjoyed being so far from people and their hateful laws. Now he felt free and the equal of anyone, and he knew that heaven was smiling on him and giving him powers that other men did not have.

Through the clouds he thought he saw a huge stone door in the bare rock wall. He went up to it and found that it really did open. When he stepped inside, he found, to his amazement, an open plain ringed by high mountains no one could climb. In front of him were more than two hundred good houses and a great many men. As soon as they got over their surprise, they rushed at him, seized him and demanded to know who he was and why he was trespassing.

“I’m surprised to find anyone here,” he said. “I am only the son of a concubine, and men and their laws are hateful to me, so I wanted to get away from people altogether. That is why I wandered alone into these wild places. But who are you, and why do you live here? Perhaps we feel the same way.”

“People call us thieves,” they answered, “but we only rob the hated officials of some of their dishonest gains, and we help the poor in secret. No one who enters our stronghold leaves it alive unless he joins us, and to join he must prove himself strong in body and mind. If you can pass the test and want to join, well and good. Otherwise you die.”

That suited Kil Tong perfectly. They set him various tests of strength, but he chose his own. He walked up to a huge rock with several men sitting on it, picked it up and hurled it some distance away, so that the men tumbled off, to the delight of everyone. He was made a member at once, and a feast was ordered. The pact was sealed with blood, as was their custom, and he was given a place of honor and served wine and food.

Kil Tong soon wanted to show his new comrades what he could do, and the chance came quickly. He heard the men complaining that they had never managed to rob a large and well-guarded Buddhist temple nearby. Officials used it as a place for idle pleasure, and in return the monks in this story were allowed to squeeze tribute out of the poor people round about, until they had grown rich and powerful. The band had tried several times, but there were too many watchful monks and the walls were too strong. Kil Tong promised to help them succeed or die trying, and they trusted him so much that they agreed to his plan at once.

On the chosen day Kil Tong put on the red robe of a newly engaged young man, covered himself with the dust of travel and rode to the temple on a donkey, with one robber disguised as his servant. He asked to see the head monk and told him that he was the son of Hong Pansa. His noble father, he said, had heard of the greatness of this temple and the wisdom of its monks and had sent him with a letter, which he handed over, to be educated among them. A train of a hundred ponies loaded with rice was also coming, a gift from his father, and should arrive before dark, each pony led by an armed groom.

The monks were delighted. They read the letter and never suspected a thing. A great feast was ordered in honor of their noble pupil, and they all sat down at tables piled so high with food that no one could see his neighbor across the way. They had hardly started on the wine when word came that the rice ponies had arrived. Servants were sent to see to them, and the feasting went on.

Suddenly Kil Tong clapped a hand to his cheek with a cry of pain, and everyone turned to look. To the monks’ horror, he took a pebble from his mouth, one he had slipped in secretly. “Did my father send me here to eat stones?” he cried. “How dare you serve such rice to a gentleman?”

The monks were mortified and bowed their shaved heads to the floor in shame. At a sign from Kil Tong, some of the robbers, who had come into the courtyard as grooms, seized the bowing monks and tied them up as they knelt. The monks shouted for help, but more robbers, who had been hidden in the sacks that were supposed to hold rice, seized the servants, while others loaded the ponies with jewels, rice, money and anything else of value they could find.

An old monk who was tending the fires saw the uproar and slipped away to the magistrate’s office nearby to call for soldiers. After some delay the soldiers came, and Kil Tong, now disguised as a monk, called to them to follow him down a side path after the robbers. While he led the soldiers over this rough path, the band escaped along the main road. Kil Tong left the soldiers stumbling about in the dark among the rocks and trees, going the wrong way, and soon joined his men in their stronghold.

The monks soon found they had lost almost all their riches, and they had no doubt who had planned the clever raid. Kil Tong’s name spread far and wide. The robbers were delighted with his first success and with one voice made him their chief.

After they had enjoyed their triumph for a while, Kil Tong planned a new raid. The governor of a neighboring province was famous for his bullying ways and the heavy taxes he laid on his people. He was very rich and hated by everyone, and Kil Tong decided to take revenge for the people and humble the governor, knowing that the people would be glad of it. He told his men to make their way one by one to the governor’s city at fair time, when strangers would not be noticed. At a set hour some of them set fire to a row of thatched huts outside the city gates, while the rest went together to the governor’s residence. The governor was carried in his chair to watch the fire, and most of the townspeople went too. Then the robbers tied up the servants who were left, and while some gathered money, jewels and weapons, Kil Tong wrote on the walls: “The wicked Governor who robs the people has been relieved of his ill-gotten gains by Kil Tong, the people’s avenger.”

Once more the band escaped, and now Kil Tong was famous everywhere. The governor offered a large reward for his capture, but nobody wanted to face such a daring robber. At last the King himself offered a reward. When one of his officers said he would catch the thief single-handed, the King was amazed at his boldness and told him to go and try. This officer was the Pochang, the chief of the prisons, a man of great courage.

The Pochang set out disguised as a traveler, with a donkey and a servant. After many days on the road he stopped at a little inn just as another man rode up on a donkey. It was Kil Tong in disguise, and he knew exactly what the Pochang was up to. He soon started a conversation.

“Dear me,” said Kil Tong as he sat down to eat, “this is dangerous country. I’ve just been chased by the robber Kil Tong until I’m half dead.”

“Kil Tong, did you say?” said the Pochang. “I wish he would chase me. I’d like to see this man we hear so much about.”

“See him once, and you’ll have seen enough,” said Kil Tong.

“Why? Is he so fearsome that just the look of him frightens people?”

“No, he looks much like anyone else. But we know he is different.”

“Exactly,” said the Pochang. “That’s the trouble. You’re afraid of him before you’ve seen him. Just let me get a look at him, and things will be different.”

“Well, that’s easily done,” said Kil Tong. “If you go back into these mountains, I dare say you’ll see him and get to know him, too.”

“Good! Will you show me the place?”

“Not I. I’ve seen enough of him. But I can tell you where to go, if you insist.”

“Agreed!” cried the officer. “Let’s go at once before he gets away. If you show him to me, I’ll reward you and protect you from him.”

Kil Tong pretended to be unwilling and insisted on finishing his dinner first, but at last they set off with their servants into the mountains. Night fell, and the guide acted very frightened and kept wanting to turn back. At length they came to the stone door, which stood open. They went in, the door shut behind them, and the guide vanished, leaving the officer surrounded by robbers.

The Pochang’s courage deserted him, and he regretted his rashness. The robbers tied him up and led him past their little town into an enclosure of brightly painted buildings fit for a king, and into a great audience hall. There, on a sort of throne, sat his guide. The Pochang saw his mistake, threw himself on his face and begged for mercy. Kil Tong scolded him for his boldness and pride and promised to let him go this time. Wine was brought for everyone, but the officer’s was drugged, and soon after drinking it he fell into a deep sleep. In that state he was put in a sack and carried, by marvelous means, to a high mountain overlooking the capital.

There he woke. Not daring to face the King with such an unbelievable story, he went no farther, and in the morning passers-by found him dead at the foot of the mountain. At almost the same moment that the King heard of his officer’s death and marveled at the boldness of bringing the body almost to the palace doors, reports came in of great robberies in all eight provinces at once. Every one was blamed on Kil Tong, and the fact that he seemed to be in eight faraway places at the same time caused great alarm.

Orders went out to all eight governors to catch Kil Tong and bring him to the capital at once. The orders were obeyed so well that one day, soon after, a guard arrived from each province with a prisoner, and there in a row stood eight men, all exactly alike.

The King learned that Kil Tong was the son of Hong Pansa, and the father was summoned to the palace. He came with his lawful son and bowed his head to the ground in shame. When the King asked what he meant by having a son who caused so much misery, he fainted and would have died if one of the Kil Tongs had not brought out a medicine that revived him. The lawful son spoke for the family and told the King that Kil Tong was only the son of a slave, that he was beyond all control and had run away from home as a boy.

When the King asked the father which of the eight was his real son, Hong Pansa said his son had a scar on his left thigh. At once all eight men pulled up their baggy trousers, and every one had a scar. The guards were ordered to take them away and put them all to death, but when they tried, the life had gone out of them, and the eight men turned out to be nothing but figures of straw and wax.

Soon afterward a letter appeared on the palace gate. If the government would give Kil Tong the rank of Pansa, the same as his father’s, and so remove the shame of being a slave’s son, he would stop his raids. At first the idea could not be considered. Then one of the councillors suggested that it might be a way out after all: when the new officer came to bow before the King, men could be posted to fall on him and kill him before he rose. The council applauded, a decree was issued granting the rank, and notices were put up in public places so that Kil Tong would hear of it.

He did hear of it, and soon he arrived at the city gate. A great crowd followed him as he rode to the palace. But he knew all about the plan, and as he passed through the gates and came within sight of the King, he was caught up into a cloud and carried away to strange music, leaving his enemies baffled.

Some time later the King was walking in the palace gardens one evening with a few attendants. The full moon gave plenty of light, and the air was just right, neither cold nor warm, with the crisp freshness of a Korean autumn. The maple leaves were blood red, and the great cloak of vines on the wall nearby glowed with color even by moonlight. The royal party was sitting on a hillside enjoying the peace of the scene when, to their astonishment, they heard a flute playing above them. Looking up into the treetops, they saw a man coming down toward them, seated on the back of a gracefully flying stork.

The King thought it must be some heavenly being and ordered his chief attendant to greet it properly. But before he could, a voice said, “Do not be afraid, O King. I am simply Hong Pansa. I have come to bow before Your Majesty and be confirmed in my rank.”

He did so, and no one tried to harm him. The King felt it was useless to keep trying to destroy a man who could read people’s secret thoughts. “Why do you go on troubling the country?” he asked. “I have taken away the shame of your birth. What more do you want?”

“I wish to go to a distant land,” said Kil Tong humbly, “and settle down in peace and happiness. If I may be granted three thousand bags of rice, I will gladly go and trouble you no more.”

“But how will you carry so much rice?” asked the King.

“That can be arranged,” said Kil Tong. “If I am granted the order, I will take the rice away at daybreak.”

The order was given, and Kil Tong left the way he had come. Early the next morning a fleet of junks appeared beside the royal granaries, loaded the rice and sailed away before people had even noticed they were there.

Kil Tong sailed to an empty island off the west coast. There he and his few followers stored their riches and brought valuables from their old hiding places, and he taught his people to farm the land. All went well until he made a trip to a neighboring island famous for a deadly mineral poison, much prized for tipping arrows. Kil Tong wanted some. As he passed through the villages there, he noticed copies of a notice posted everywhere offering a large reward to anyone who could bring home a young lady who had been carried off by a band of wild men from the mountains.

He traveled all day, and by night he was high in the wild mountains where the poison was found. As he was getting ready to spend the night, he saw a light and followed it to a house built on a ledge of rock below him, in a place almost impossible to reach. Inside a large hall he could see many shaggy men eating, drinking and smoking. One old fellow, who seemed to be the chief, was tormenting a young lady by trying to tear off her veil in front of everyone. Kil Tong could not bear it. He took a poisoned arrow and shot it at the villain, but the distance was so great that it only grazed his arm. Everyone was thrown into confusion, and in the uproar the girl slipped away. Kil Tong hid for the night.

The next day some of the band caught him and demanded to know who he was and what he was doing in their mountains. He said he was a physician who had come to gather a rare medicine found only there. The men were delighted. Their chief, they said, had been wounded by an arrow from the clouds; could he cure him? Kil Tong was taken in to examine the chief and promised to cure him within three days. Instead he quickly mixed some of the fresh poison into the wound, and the chief died almost at once.

There was a great uproar, and the whole band rushed at the doctor. Finding his own powers not enough, Kil Tong called on his old friends the spirits for help. Swords flashed through the air, and they did not stop until the whole band had been struck down.

Kil Tong burst open a door and found two women sitting with veiled faces. Thinking they belonged to the wild band, he was about to strike them, when one of them threw back her veil and begged for mercy. It was the girl he had rescued the night before. She was wonderfully beautiful, and he was already deeply in love with her. Her voice was like that of an angel of peace. She told him how the robbers had captured her and dragged her to their den, and how some heavenly being had taken pity on her and struck the arm of her tormentor.

Kil Tong was overjoyed to tell her his part in it, and her heart, already won by her handsome rescuer, overflowed with gratitude and love. Remembering her manners, she quickly veiled her face again, but it was too late: they had seen each other, and from then on they could only be at peace together.

Kil Tong had paid little attention to the notices until she told her story. Now he hurried to take her and her companion home. Afraid that more of the wild men might come back, he did not stop to look for a chair and bearers, and the little party set off on donkeys and reached her parents’ home safely.

Her father’s joy knew no bounds. He was a subject of the King of Korea, but he owned this island and ruled its people in his own right. He called his people together, told them publicly of the stranger’s wonderful deeds, promised him his daughter in marriage and handed over his own position to him. The people held great celebrations for the return of their chief’s lost daughter, for Kil Tong’s bravery and for their new ruler.

In due time the wedding was held, and the two lovers lived in great happiness and prosperity. Other islands nearby came under Kil Tong’s rule, and he had everything he could wish for.

Yet a time came when he grew sad, and his young wife wept inwardly as she tried in vain to comfort him. At last he told her that he had a feeling his father was dead or dying, and that it was his duty to go and mourn at his grave. Heartbroken at the thought of parting, his wife urged him to go.

He set out for the capital in a junk loaded with fine marble slabs for the grave and stone figures to stand around it, followed by more junks carrying three thousand bags of rice. When he arrived, he cut off his hair and went to his old home, where a servant let him in, taking him for a monk. He found that his father was dead, but his body had not yet been buried, because no suitable place had been found. Still thinking he was a monk, the family let him choose the spot, and the burial took place with proper ceremony. Then the son revealed who he was and took his place among the mourners. The stone figures and monuments were set up on the neatly turfed ground.

Kil Tong sent the rice he had brought to the government granaries to repay the King’s loan, and he sent word that he was sorry his mourning kept him from paying his respects in person. Then he set out for his island home with his true mother and his father’s lawful wife. The lady did not live long after her husband’s death, but the poor slave mother of the bright boy lived many years in the peace and quiet of her son’s happy home, cared for by her loving children and their many children.

About this story

“Hong Kil Tong; or, The Adventures of an Abused Boy” is the last story in H. N. Allen’s Korean Tales, published in New York and London in 1889. Allen, an American doctor who served as Foreign Secretary of Legation for Korea, translated it from a famous Korean tale of the hero Hong Gil-dong, a nobleman’s son by a concubine who becomes an outlaw robbing corrupt officials.

At the heart of the story is Kil Tong’s anger at laws that kept the sons of concubines from calling their fathers “Father” or holding office. The rank the King finally grants him is the very thing he had been denied at birth. The original includes more graphic violence than this adaptation. The murders, attempted murders, poisoning and the prison officer’s death nevertheless remain. Allen’s opening refers vaguely to a “third king”; this telling does not treat that phrase as a reliable historical date. The temple episode depicts particular corrupt monks within the adventure, not Buddhist practice in general.

Read the original: Korean Tales (Project Gutenberg)

For older readers: includes discrimination by birth, family murder plots, drugging, a fatal abandonment, poisoning, mass killing and threats against a captive woman.

A challenge to rank, with an uneasy victory

Kil Tong objects to a system that judges him before he acts. Yet he gains entry to the temple by claiming his father’s status, and he later demands that same official rank for himself. These scenes show both his rejection of inherited privilege and his ability to use it. The king’s concession changes Kil Tong’s position; this telling does not show a general change in the rules for other children in his situation.

The robber band describes itself as a friend of the poor, but its operations include burning huts as a diversion. The narrator does not tell us who owned those huts or what happened to their residents. The officer is promised release, then drugged and abandoned; his death also complicates a simple portrait of merciful heroism. These gaps are worth noticing alongside the hero’s courage and his care for his mother.

Follow the promises and payments

Compare the assassins’ promise, the offer of official rank and the three thousand bags of rice. Who keeps each agreement, who sets a trap, and what is repaid? Then list one injury that the final prosperity does not explicitly repair. Does the ending establish justice for a community, an exceptional escape for one family, or elements of both?

Questions to ask

• Why was Kil Tong treated differently from his brothers?
• How did he trick the monks at the temple?
• Was Kil Tong a hero, a thief, or both? Why?

More stories like this

• Im, the Hunter — a young Korean hero and a mysterious mountain outlaw
• Hyung-bo and Nahl-bo — another story from Allen’s Korean Tales
• Sim Chung — another of Allen’s tales, involving a child’s perilous sacrifice