The Man on the Road

During the Manchu War of 1636, the people of Seoul fled the city in crowds. One group of them suddenly ran into a great force of the enemy, armed and on horseback. The hills and valleys seemed to swarm with soldiers, and there was no way to escape. The people had no idea what to do.

In the middle of their panic, they noticed someone sitting calmly in the main road just ahead of them, under a pine tree, without a care in the world. He had got down from his horse, which a servant held close by, and in front of him hung a screen of cotton cloth several yards long, as if to keep off the dust of the passing army.

The fleeing people hurried up to the stranger and begged him, “We’re all going to die! What shall we do?”

“Why should you die?” said the mysterious stranger. “And why are you so frightened? Sit down beside me and watch the invaders go by.”

Seeing how calm he was and how little fear he showed, and having nowhere else to go, the people did as he said and sat down.

The enemy horsemen streamed past in great numbers, attacking everyone they met so that no one in their path escaped. But when they reached the spot where the magician sat, they rode on by as if they saw nothing at all. This went on until evening, when the whole army had passed. The stranger and the people with him sat there all day long without coming to any harm, though they were right in the middle of the enemy, as it were.

Realizing at last that he had some wonderful magic, the people all came and bowed down before him and asked his name and where he lived. But he did not answer. He mounted his beautiful horse and rode swiftly away, and no one could catch him.

The next day the group met a man who had been taken prisoner by the enemy but had escaped. They asked whether he had noticed anything unusual the day before. “When I was marching with the invading army past such-and-such a place,” he said, naming the very spot where the magician had sat with the people, “we had to go around some great walls and steep cliffs that no one could get past, and so we went on by.”

So a few yards of cotton cloth had been turned into walls and cliffs before the eyes of the passing army.

About this story

“The Man on the Road” comes from James Scarth Gale’s Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts and Fairies (1913), a translation of stories collected by Im Bang. It is set during the Manchu invasion of 1636–37, when the armies of the Qing overran Korea and the people of Seoul fled for their lives.

Like many tales from troubled times, it tells of a mysterious protector who appears from nowhere, saves ordinary people and rides away without a word. His only tool is a strip of cotton cloth.

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

Best for ages 9–12 — a calm stranger, a screen of cotton cloth and an army that marches right past.

One place, two landscapes

The refugees see a few yards of cloth; the captive later reports walls and cliffs. The second account explains a mystery the protected people could not solve from their own viewpoint. The stranger’s calm makes them willing to stay, but it is his magic within the tale, not calmness by itself, that shields them. His refusal to give a name leaves the episode focused on the people saved rather than on a reward or public honour for the rescuer.

Draw both sides of the screen

Draw what the seated refugees can see and what the captive says the army sees. Keep the place the same. Explain why the final report changes the meaning of the plain cotton cloth.

Questions to ask

• Why did the people decide to sit down beside the stranger?
• What did the enemy soldiers see when they passed the screen?
• Why do you think the stranger rode away without giving his name?

You may also like

• The Magic Invasion of Seoul — another tale of magic in wartime Korea
• Yun Se-pyong, the Wizard — a Korean wizard with strange powers
• The Ill-Fated Priest — another nameless stranger who comes to the rescue