Ten Thousand Devils

A certain Prince Han of Choong-chong Province had a distant relative, a rough countryman who lived in terrible poverty and came to visit him every so often. Han pitied him for being so cold and hungry. He gave him clothes, shared his meals with him and urged him to stay on, so that his visits often lasted several months. Still, though he felt sorry for him, Han could not help disliking his clumsy manners and dull wits.

On one of these visits, the poor relative suddenly announced that he must go home, even though New Year was almost upon them. Han begged him to stay. “You’d be far better off here in comfort, eating New Year cakes and soup and sleeping in peace, than riding through wind and weather at this time of year.”

At first the man insisted that he had to go, but his host pressed him so hard that at last he gave in. On New Year’s Eve he said to Prince Han, “I have a strange kind of magic that gives me power over all sorts of evil spirits, and New Year is when I call them up, read out their names and inspect them. If I didn’t, I would lose control of them completely, and there would be no end of trouble for people. It is no small matter, and that is why I wanted to go home. But since you have kept me here, I shall have to call them up in Your Excellency’s house and look them over. I hope you won’t mind.”

Han was astonished and alarmed, but he agreed. “This is extremely important,” the relative went on, “and I would like to use your main guest hall for it.”

Han agreed to that too, so that night the floors were washed and scrubbed clean. The relative sat down with great dignity facing south, while Prince Han took up a hiding place outside to watch. Soon he saw an astonishing variety of demons crowding in at the door, hideous to look at and dreadful in their bearing. They lined up one after another, and more and more of them, until they filled the whole courtyard, each one bowing as he came before the master. The master took out a book, opened it in front of him and began reading out names, and demon guards standing at the threshold repeated each name and checked it off, just as clerks do in a government office. The roll call went on from the second watch of the night to the fifth, near dawn. “He wasn’t lying,” Han said to himself, “when he spoke of ten thousand devils.”

One latecomer arrived after the roll had been taken, and another came climbing over the wall. The master ordered both arrested and questioned under the paddle. The latecomer said, “Times have been very hard for me lately, and to find anything to live on, I had to slip smallpox into the home of a scholar in Yong-nam. It’s a long way off, so I was late for roll call. I confess it’s a serious fault.”

The one who had climbed the wall said, “I too have known want and hunger, so I had to slip a little typhus into the family of a gentleman in Kyong-keui. When I heard roll call was due, I came rushing helter-skelter for fear of being late, and so I climbed the wall, which was indeed wrong of me.”

The master scolded them loudly. “These devils have disobeyed my orders, spread disease and done great wrong. Worst of all, they have climbed the wall of a high official’s house.” He ordered them to be given a hundred strokes of the paddle, fastened in the wooden collar of punishment and locked up in prison. Then he called the rest before him and said, “Do not spread disease! Do you understand?” Three times he gave the order, and five times he repeated it. Then he dismissed them, and the crowd of devils filed out past him and pushed through the gate with tremendous noise and confusion. It was a long time before the last of them had gone.

Prince Han, still watching, saw the man sitting alone in the hall. All was quiet, and every devil had vanished. The cocks crowed, and morning came. Han, amazed beyond words, asked what secret law governed such work.

“When I was young,” the poor relative replied, “I studied at a monastery in the mountains. There was an old priest there with a very strange face, so frail he seemed ready to die. All the other priests made fun of him and treated him with contempt. I alone pitied him in his old age, often shared my food with him and was always kind to him. One bright moonlit evening, the old priest said to me, ‘Behind this monastery there is a cave with a beautiful view. Won’t you come and see it with me?’

“I went with him, and when we had crossed the ridge into the stillness of the night, he took a book from inside his robe and gave it to me. ‘I am old and ready to die,’ he said, ‘and I hold a great secret that I have long wanted to pass on to someone worthy. I have traveled the length and breadth of Korea and never found the right person until I met you. Now my heart is content, so please take it.’

“I opened the book and found that it was a list of devils, with magic writing scattered through it and an explanation of the laws of the spirit world. The old priest wrote out one magic charm and set fire to it, and countless devils gathered in an instant, which frightened me terribly. Then he sat beside me, called their names one after another and said to them, ‘I am an old man now and I am going away, so I am placing you in the care of this young man. Obey him, and all will be well.’ The book was in my hands, so I called them to me, read out the new orders and dismissed them.

“The old priest and I went back to the temple and to sleep. I woke early the next morning and went to see him, but he was gone. That is how I came to have this magic art, and I have had it for twenty years and more. What the world knows nothing about, I have now told to Your Excellency.”

Han was astonished beyond measure. “Couldn’t I have this wonderful gift too?” he asked.

“Your Excellency has great ability and can do wonderful things,” the man replied, “but whoever holds this art must be poor, despised and of no account. For a minister like you, it would never do.”

The next day he left suddenly and did not come back. Han sent a servant with a message for him, and after a long and difficult search the servant found him living alone among a thousand mountain peaks, in a little straw hut no bigger than a cockleshell, with no neighbors and no one else anywhere near. The servant called him, but he would not come. Han sent a second messenger to invite him, but by then he had moved on and left no trace.

Prince Han’s children heard this story from their father himself, and Im Bang, who wrote it down, heard it from them.

About this story

“Ten Thousand Devils” is from Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts and Fairies, the 1913 book in which James Scarth Gale translated stories collected by Im Bang. Gale identifies Prince Han with the statesman Han Chun-kyom, who sat beside the dying King Son-jo taking down his last wishes and later commanded the army from 1608 to 1623.

The tale imagines the spirits of disease as an unruly army that must be counted and kept in order each New Year. Its hero is the poor, awkward relative everyone looks down on, who holds a power that the great minister himself cannot have.

Read the original: Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts and Fairies (Project Gutenberg)

Best for ages 9–12 — a poor relation, a book of spirits and a New Year’s Eve roll call of ten thousand devils.

Kindness without admiration

Han feeds his relative but still looks down on him. Earlier, the relative fed an old priest whom others mocked, and that care made him the chosen successor. The two acts of hospitality mirror each other, but the second comes without an expectation of importance. The rule that the master must remain poor belongs to the fantasy; it does not make poverty a duty or contempt acceptable. Disease-causing spirits are likewise part of the tale’s imagined world.

Compare the hosts

Place Han’s welcome beside the relative’s care for the priest. What help do both give, and how do their judgments differ? Which kindness occurs before any magical power is revealed?

Questions to ask

• Why did the poor relative want to go home before New Year?
• How did he come to have power over the devils?
• Why did he say Prince Han could never have the same gift?

More stories like this

• The Awful Little Goblin — another powerful spirit no one recognizes
• Hong’s Experiences in Hades — a visit to the world of spirits
• The Honest Witch — another Gale tale about Korea’s spirit world