The Honest Witch

The narrator introduces Song Sang-in as a Korean official with an upright mind and a true heart, though his conduct gives readers reason to question that praise. He hated mudangs, the shamans people called witches, with all his might, and he thought they cheated the people. “With their so-called prayers,” he said, “they eat up people’s money and goods. There’s no end to the foolishness and waste that comes with them. Their teaching is pure nonsense. I wish I could rid the earth of them and wipe out their very names forever.”

Some time later Song was made magistrate of Nam Won County in Chulla Province. As soon as he arrived, he issued an order: any witch found in the county was to be beaten to death. The whole county was watched so closely that every witch fled to other districts. “Now we are rid of them,” the magistrate thought, “and that settles it for this county, at least.”

One day he went for a walk and stopped to rest at the Kwang-han Pavilion. Looking out from that high spot, he saw a woman riding toward him on horseback with a shaman’s drum on her head. He looked hard to make sure, and to his astonishment she really was a mudang. He sent a runner to arrest her, and when she was brought before him, he asked, “Are you a mudang?”

“Yes, I am,” she said.

“Then you didn’t know about my order?”

“Oh yes, I heard about it.”

“Aren’t you afraid to die, staying here in this county?”

The mudang bowed. “I have a complaint to bring to Your Excellency. Please hear it and grant my request. There are true mudangs and false mudangs. False mudangs ought to be killed, but you wouldn’t kill an honest one, would you? Your order is about false mudangs; I don’t take it to mean the true ones. I am an honest mudang. I knew you wouldn’t kill me, so I stayed here without fear.”

“How do you know there are honest mudangs?” asked the magistrate.

“Let’s put it to the test and see,” she replied. “If I’m not proved honest, let me die.”

“Very well,” said the magistrate. “But can you really prove it? Do you truly know how to call back the spirits of the dead?”

“I can,” said the mudang.

The magistrate suddenly thought of a close friend who had died some time ago. “I had a friend in Seoul, an official of such-and-such a rank,” he said. “Can you call his spirit back to me?”

“Let me do it,” said the mudang. “But first you must have food and wine prepared and set out properly.”

The magistrate thought for a moment and said to himself, “Taking a life is a serious thing. Let me find out first whether she’s honest, and then decide.” So he had the food brought.

“I’ll need a suit of your clothes too, please,” said the mudang. When it was brought, she spread her mat in the courtyard, arranged the food in order, put on the clothes and made everything ready. Then she raised her eyes to heaven and made the strange magic sounds that call the spirits, shaking a tinkling bell.

After a little while she turned and said, “I’ve come.” And she began to tell the sad story of the friend’s illness and death and of how the two had been parted. She spoke of how they had played together as boys, of things that had happened when they studied their lessons at school, of their struggles in the examinations and of their experiences as officials. She told secrets the two close friends had shared and many things that only they had known. She did not make a single mistake but was right in every detail.

When the magistrate heard all this, he began to weep. “My friend’s spirit is really here,” he said. “I can’t doubt it or deny it any longer.” He ordered the finest food that could be found to be prepared as an offering to his friend, and after a little while the friend said goodbye and left.

“Alas!” said the magistrate. “I thought mudangs were a pack of liars, but now I know there are true mudangs as well as false ones.” He gave her rich rewards and sent her away safely. He withdrew his order against the witches, and for the rest of his life he left their affairs alone.

About this story

“The Honest Witch” comes from James Scarth Gale’s Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts and Fairies, published in 1913, and is one of the stories Gale translated from Im Bang. Gale adds that Song Sang-in was a real official, a just man who became a provincial governor, was exiled to the island of Quelpart (Jeju) for ten years and was called back to court in 1623.

The “witches” of the story are mudangs, the shamans of Korean folk religion, who held rites to speak with spirits of the dead. Here a stern magistrate who despised them all is won over by a mudang brave enough to stand her ground.

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

Suggested for ages 9–12 with an adult: includes an official’s order to beat shamans to death and a woman compelled to defend her life.

A change of mind does not erase the threat

The shaman argues within the magistrate’s own terms, insisting that an honest practitioner should be spared. It is a dangerous tactic: she even accepts his threatened penalty for those he considers false. Readers need not accept that penalty to admire her composure. His grief eventually makes him recognise an individual where he had condemned an entire group. The important reversal is the withdrawal of his order, not a right to demand a supernatural performance before respecting someone’s life.

Rewrite the order

Compose a rule the magistrate could have issued before meeting the shaman that addresses a specific complaint without punishing everyone in a religious group. Compare its fairness with his original order.

Think about it

• Why did Song Sang-in hate the mudangs?
• Why wasn’t the mudang afraid to stay in his county?
• What finally changed the magistrate’s mind?

Related stories

• Ten Thousand Devils — another Gale tale of a man with power over spirits
• A Visit from the Shades — more Korean tales of the spirits of the dead
• The Fearless Captain — another Korean official who faces the spirit world