The Man Who Became a Pig

A Minister of State named Kim Yu, who lived in Seung-pyong County, had a relative far away in the countryside, an old man nearly a hundred years old. One day a son of this old man came to the Minister’s office and asked to see him. Kim had him shown in and asked why he had come.

“I have something very important to tell Your Excellency,” the man said, “a private matter. You have so many guests just now that I’ll come back this evening and tell you then.”

That evening, when everyone had gone, he came back. The Minister sent his own attendants out of the room and asked what it was all about.

“My father, though very old, was a strong and healthy man, as you may know,” the son began. “One day he called us children and said, ‘I want to take a nap, so shut the door and all of you leave the room. Don’t let anyone come in until I call you.’ Of course we agreed and did as he said. But late into the night there was no call and no word to open the door, and we began to worry. At last we peeped through a crack, and there was our father, changed into a huge pig!

“Terrified, we opened the door and looked in, and the animal grunted, growled and charged, trying to get past us. We slammed the door shut and talked it over. Some said, ‘Let’s keep the pig just as it is, indoors, and look after it.’ Others said, ‘Let’s hold a funeral and bury it.’ We are simple country folk and don’t know what to do in such strange circumstances, so I have come to ask Your Excellency’s advice. Please think about this startling thing and tell us what we should do.”

Kim was greatly startled. He thought for a long time and then said, “Nothing so mysterious has ever been heard of, and I really don’t know what is best. Still, it seems to me that since this change has happened, you must not bury the creature while it is alive, so give up the idea of a funeral. And since it is no longer a human being, I don’t think it right to keep it in the house. You say it wants to escape, and a cave in the woods or hills is its proper home, so I think you should take it out and set it free in the wild depths of some mountain country where no person has ever set foot.”

The son took this wise advice. He carried the pig deep into the mountains and let it go. Then he put on mourning clothes, buried his father’s clothes in a funeral and kept the day of the transformation each year as the day for the memorial ceremony.

About this story

“The Man Who Became a Pig” comes from James Scarth Gale’s Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts and Fairies (1913), translated from the collection of Im Bang. Gale introduces it with a long note on Kim Yu, a real minister who helped put King In-jo on the throne in 1623 and later served as Prime Minister.

The strange event at the center of the tale leaves a family facing a puzzle no custom had prepared them for. Kim Yu’s answer, that the creature should neither be buried alive nor kept indoors but set free in the mountains, is the solution this particular tale praises. It should be read as a response to an impossible transformation, not as advice for handling an actual animal.

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

Best for ages 9–12 — a very old man, a shut door and a wise minister asked to solve an impossible puzzle.

A ritual cannot decide whether someone is alive

Kim begins by admitting that he does not know the best answer. He nevertheless draws one firm boundary: a living creature must not be buried. The family then separates two needs that had seemed inseparable. The pig is allowed to live, while the clothes provide something through which they can mourn the father they knew. That separation, rather than a confident explanation of the magic, resolves the dilemma.

Compare the three proposals

List keeping the pig indoors, burying it and releasing it. Beside each, note what happens to the living creature and what happens to the family’s mourning. Why does the burial of clothes matter to the final choice?

Think about it

• Why did the son travel so far to ask the Minister for advice?
• What were the family’s two ideas, and why did Kim Yu reject both?
• How did the family honor their father afterward?

You may also like

• The Old Man Who Became a Fish — another very old father who changes shape
• Old Timber Top — a man turned into a bull
• The Geomancer — another family that seeks expert advice