The Grateful Ghost

People often tell how, in the days of the Koryo Dynasty, a scholar set out from a faraway part of the country to sit the government examination. One evening on his journey, as the day was ending, he found himself among the mountains. Suddenly he heard someone sneezing in the vines and bushes by the road, but he could see no one. Puzzled, he got down from his horse, stepped into the thicket and listened. The sneeze came a second time, and it seemed to come from the roots of a vine right next to him, so he told his servant to dig around it. The servant dug and found a skull. It was full of earth, and the roots of the vine had grown through the nose holes. The sneezing came from the spirit, which was annoyed at having its nose so uncomfortably blocked.

The scholar felt sorry for it. He washed the skull in clean water, wrapped it in paper and buried it properly on the hillside where it had lain. He also set out a table of food as an offering and said a prayer.

That night a scholar came to him in a dream, an old man with white hair, who bowed and thanked him. “Because of a wrong I did in a past life,” he said, “I died ahead of my time, my days unfinished. My descendants all perished too, and my body crumbled to dust, leaving only my skull, which is what you found under the vine. With the root running through it, the discomfort was so great that I could not help sneezing. By good fortune, you with your kind heart, blessed by Heaven, took pity on me, buried me in a clean place and gave me food. Your kindness is greater than the mountains, as great as the gift of life itself.

“Though my spirit is far from perfect, I longed for some way to repay you, so I have used my powers on your behalf. You are traveling to sit the examination, so I will tell you now what form it will take and what the subject will be. You must write in couplets of five-character lines, rhyming on the sound ‘pong’, and the subject is ‘Peaks and Spires of the Summer Clouds’. I have composed a poem for you, and if you choose to use it, it will surely win you first place.”

Then he recited the poem. It told of a white sun riding high in the sky while drifting clouds piled up into a tall peak. A priest who saw them asked whether a temple stood up there, and a crane was sad to find no pine trees on that mountain. Yet the lightning flashing from the cloud was a woodcutter’s axe, and the muffled thunder was the bell of a holy temple. Who could say that hills never move? These ones sailed away on the evening breeze. When he had finished, the old man bowed and left.

The scholar woke from his dream full of wonder and traveled on to Seoul. There, sure enough, the subject was just as the spirit had said. He wrote down the poem he had been given and took first place in the examination.

About this story

“The Grateful Ghost” comes from the collection of Im Bang, translated by James Scarth Gale in Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts and Fairies in 1913. It is set during the Koryo Dynasty, which ruled Korea from 918 to 1392.

The state examinations, in which young men competed by writing poetry and essays, were the road to an official career in old Korea. In this tale a simple act of respect for the dead earns a candidate an extraordinary advantage: the spirit gives him the exam topic and a prize-winning poem. The reward also raises a question about fairness to the other candidates.

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

Suggested for ages 9–12 with an adult: includes a human skull, burial, a dead family and an examination won using another speaker’s poem.

A generous act and an unfair advantage

The scholar helps before any reward is offered, so the burial is not a bargain. The ghost’s repayment is more complicated: he supplies both the topic and the finished poem for an examination meant to distinguish candidates. Gratitude explains why the ghost helps, but it does not settle whether submitting that poem is fair. The poem itself offers another kind of transformation: clouds become hills, lightning becomes an axe and thunder becomes a bell.

Make your own moving mountain

Draw a cloud and invent two images suggested by its shape or movement. Write your own couplet about it. Then explain why creating that verse differs from handing in the ghost’s poem as your own work.

Questions to ask

• Why was the skull sneezing?
• What did the scholar do to help the spirit?
• How did the ghost repay his kindness?

Related stories

• The Fortunes of Yoo — another Korean tale of a scholar and the examinations
• A Visit from the Shades — more spirits from Gale’s collection
• The Geomancer — a Korean tale about graves and good fortune