Sir One Long Body and Madam Thousand Feet

Griffis sets this animal comedy in an imagined Land of Morning Radiance, filling it with talk of family names, shoes and clothing. In his picture, gentlemen have white socks with tough leather soles, ladies wear pointed slippers and ordinary folk wear straw-and-twine sandals. These details prepare the shoe joke; they should not be treated as rules for all Korean families or periods.

Under an old stone beneath a persimmon tree there lived a pretty young creature named Miss Thousand Feet. She wore gray clothes, and she had so many toes that anyone who tried to count them soon got tired, gave up and called the total a thousand, a number as round as she was. She was proud of every one of her many little feet. Yet she was very shy, and if anyone stepped on her toes or touched her, she curled up, first into a ring and then into a ball. So people made a joke on her family name and called her a pill millipede, for she belonged to the Pil family, one of the most famous in all Korea.

Miss Thousand Feet was very happy living in the cool earth under her damp stone, and she spent a lot of time playing. But when she grew up, her parents told her it was time to marry, and they looked around to see whether any gentleman in all creation was worthy of her, someone who would make a good husband and also a good match.

In another village there lived a rich, plump young fellow with a fine future, named Mr. Long Body, of the Wum family. His job was to eat his way through the ground and leave little curly heaps of mud on top, and it kept him very busy. He had to watch out for birds, who loved to eat folk like him, soft and tasty as he was. All that wriggling through the earth kept his body shiny, so that, as earthworms go, he was quite handsome and thought to be a fine catch for Miss Thousand Feet. Besides, since he had no feet and she had so many, and his body was long and hers was short, everyone supposed that each would make up for what the other lacked and that they would be happy together as husband and wife.

When Mr. Long Body heard about the charms of Miss Thousand Feet, he agreed. All his friends were pairing off and bringing their brides home to their fathers’ houses, and now that he was grown up, he decided to marry too.

So, following the custom in this telling, he sent letters and began the business through a go-between, the lady who arranges marriages. She visits both families, praising the bride’s beauty and grace to one and the groom’s strength and wealth to the other, and gives each a glowing report of the other. At last the “six proprieties”, the half-dozen rules of a proper engagement, were all completed, and the engagement of Mr. Wum and Miss Pil was announced.

What a clatter of gossip broke out in both villages! Nobody had ever imagined that such a handsome fellow as Mr. Long Body Wum would marry into the Pil family. Some jealous folk hinted that if he took a wife with a thousand feet, he would never be able to pay the shoemaker. “As long as she was happy with plain twine shoes, things might be all right,” they said, “but if she wanted something special, or turned out to be extravagant and asked for the fancy turned-up red leather slippers only rich ladies wear, there would be trouble at home.” How could he keep her in shoes? Others, though, who knew how famous the Pils were, wondered how Mr. Wum had ever won such a prize.

In her village, the gossips’ tongues wagged in much the same way. What did she see in that fellow with no legs? When the honeymoon was over and she had to make his clothes, could she even sew? Could she make a long coat and a single trouser leg big enough to fit him? Think of the days of cutting and sewing, and the weary hours of washing, starching and beating his clothes until they shone! She would never get a moment’s rest. She would be his seamstress, his tailor and his laundress all at once, washing, starching and beating to a fine gloss those one-legged trousers, which he would have to change often, for he lived in the dirt!

Mr. Long Body Wum was so busy digging that he had no time for the village chatterboxes. But Miss Pil could not help hearing what people said about her, especially all the talk about the terribly hard work waiting for her if she married. While Mr. Wum kept digging a tunnel three yards long underground, saving up for his wedding, Miss Pil fretted over the gossip and over those awfully long coats and one-legged trousers she would have to sit up at night to make, wash, starch and polish. She could almost feel her arms aching from beating in the Korean gloss, which the gentlemen in this comic setting were expected to display. If his coat lacked that fashionable shine, the women would notice right away, and soon the men would too.

Worrying about it night and day only made things worse and wore on her nerves. She refused to get her wedding things ready, and no matter how much her friends praised Mr. Long Body Wum, she decided to write and tell him that because of his long body without limbs, and all the work of making his clothes, starching and polishing them and keeping them in order, she could not go through with the engagement and must break it off.

But even as she was about to drip water on her ink stone, rub up the ink and take up her brush and paper, Mr. Long Body heard about her complaints, and it worried him. Why should he marry someone who did not want him?

Then, thinking it over, he began to wonder, as a very thrifty and careful bachelor, whether he could afford shoes for all his bride’s feet. He had not yet seen her face or figure, for the arranged match in this tale had proceeded without an open meeting. He had not counted her tiny feet, but since she was a Pil, he supposed she must have a thousand of them, just as people said. When he worked out what that would cost, even in cheap twine sandals, he was startled. When he worked out the price of ladies’ turned-up leather slippers, he was so alarmed he nearly fainted. Five hundred pairs of shoes, however tiny! He could hardly breathe. He saw himself ruined. What should he do?

And when she took off her shoes at night, where would he keep them all? And what a racket she would make in rough-soled shoes, bustling about the house and yard! It was dreadful for a quiet bachelor even to think of the clatter. He could feel himself going deaf. Should he break off the engagement? But how could a Wum do such a thing honorably? What would the neighbors say? And if he went back on his word, could he ever find another bride from a family as respectable as the Pils?

Still, there were some days left until the wedding, so he decided to sleep on it. By the next morning his mind was made up, and he could crawl into his hole, out of sight, with an easy heart. He wrote to Miss Pil, explaining the facts and asking to be released from the engagement. In short, he said that his small fortune would not stretch to all the shoes, of the kind a lady of her rank and taste deserved, so he could not ask her to share his poverty, and he begged her to find a husband who could provide them.

Now, as it happened, the two letters crossed on the road. Each of them received a refusal while the ink on their own letter was still wet, so neither could complain.

So there was no wedding, no merrymaking for the young folk and no feasting for the relatives, and to this day Miss Pil is single and Mr. Wum has no wife. The gossips in his village were hard on her and said she got just what she deserved, and that people should look at the good points in someone’s character and not dwell on their faults. In her village, meanwhile, everyone agreed that a bachelor ought to count the whole cost of marrying.

And so Miss Pil still goes barefoot, hiding from the light under a stone, and Mr. Wum stays out of sight underground, for he has nothing to wear.

About this fable

“Sir One Long Body and Madam Thousand Feet” comes from William Elliot Griffis’s Korean Fairy Tales. It is a comic animal tale about a millipede and an earthworm whose arranged marriage falls apart before it begins, and it pokes gentle fun at village gossip and at the cost of keeping up appearances.

Griffis mixes animal features with imagined courtship expenses, the go-between, engagement formalities and the labour of starching clothes. The literal “thousand feet” and the Pil/pill joke signal comic invention, not a reliable account of names, anatomy or every household’s customs.

Read the original: Korean Fairy Tales (Project Gutenberg)

Best for all ages — a millipede, an earthworm and a wedding called off over shoes and laundry.

Neither has asked the other

The shoe bill and laundry burden grow through neighbours’ guesses. Miss Pil has not demanded luxury slippers, and Mr. Wum has not discussed who will maintain his clothes. Their letters cross because both reach conclusions without that conversation. Yet they are entitled to decide against marriage; the comedy does not make consent less important.

The villages also contradict each other. One says character matters more than costs, while the other praises calculating every expense. Both can sound wise after the engagement fails.

Replace a rumour with a question

Choose one feared expense and one feared task. Write what the couple could ask each other to establish the actual expectation. Then compare the two villages’ closing judgments: which facts does each leave out?

Questions to ask

• Why did everyone think the millipede and the earthworm would be a good match?
• What did the gossips say to worry each of them?
• Do you think they should have listened to the gossip? Why or why not?

You may also like

• A Bridegroom for Miss Mole — another Korean search for the perfect match
• A Frog for a Husband — a surprising Korean wedding tale
• Old White Whiskers and Mr. Bunny — another Korean animal story from Griffis