The Sneezing Colossus

Mr. Kim, who lived at the foot of the mountains, was a lazy fellow. He had a family to feed, but he did not care for steady work. He would much rather smoke his pipe, which was as long as a yardstick, and wait for something to turn up.

One day his wife grew tired of trying to feed hungry children from empty dishes. She gave her husband a good scolding and told him to be off and bring something home for the household. That household was a father, a mother and four little ones whose faces were not often washed, plus a little dog. Whenever danger was near, the puppy would dash into the house through a small square hole cut in the door and bark loudly from safety inside.

So Mr. Kim went off into the mountains to look for something: a ginseng root, a nugget of gold or a precious stone, if he was lucky, or if not, some berries, wild grapes or pears. Meanwhile, at home, his wife pounded the last of the grain in the cupboard for the children’s dinner.

Mr. Kim wandered over the rocks for a long time without finding anything worth carrying home. At about noon he came upon one of the mighty mir-yeks, the giant stone Buddhas carved out of the solid mountain. It towered many yards into the air. Ages ago, when monasteries covered the land and monks and nuns chanted hymns to the Buddha, devout men had worked for months to chisel this colossus into human form. Its nose stuck out three feet, and its mouth was four feet wide. On its flat head sat a granite slab shaped like a scholar’s square cap, big enough for ten men to stand on without crowding.

The monks were long gone and forgotten, and the monastery had crumbled into ruins. The forest had grown up around the great statue until tall trees almost hid it, and wild grapevines had gripped the stone with their tendrils and spread their tangled leaves nearly up to its neck.

But out of a crack in the statue’s head grew a pear tree, sprung from a seed that some bird’s great-grandfather had dropped long ago. And oh, joy! At the end of an outer branch hung a ripe, juicy pear nearly as big as a man’s head. What a prize! Cut up, it would make dessert for the whole family. Happy Kim! He thanked his lucky star.

Grabbing the bushes and grapevines, Mr. Kim struggled upward with all his might until he reached the chin of the great stone face. Above him jutted the enormous nose, its nostrils gaping like caves. But though he stood with his feet on the stone lips and clung to the nose, try as he might, he could climb no higher. He was at his wits’ end. Far above, the delicious pear hung there as if to tease him. A gentle breeze swung it to and fro, and it seemed to say, “Take me if you can!”

The nose was polished and slippery, and the ears were too smooth to climb. What could he hold on to? It was impossible to shin up any farther. Must he give up the pear?

Then a bright idea popped into his head. He would crawl up the right nostril and hope to find a way out at the top. So, like a little insect, he wriggled into the hole, and soon Mr. Kim vanished from sight, climbing hand over foot into the dark.

Wasn’t it dangerous to tickle the nose of the great stone man like that? Whatever Mr. Kim thought, he kept going, determined to get that pear no matter what.

Suddenly there was a blast loud enough to split the mountain. Hash-ho! Was it an earthquake? A storm? Rolling thunder?

No, the colossus had sneezed, and that was how the stone man got rid of his visitor. The next thing Mr. Kim knew, he was flying through the air, and he landed in the bushes with his wits knocked clean out of him. It was about one o’clock in the afternoon.

Mr. Kim lay there, asleep or senseless, until nearly sundown. Then he woke up and realized what had happened. High above him, the great stone nose loomed toward the sky.

But the colossus had sneezed so hard that it shook its head, and the big pear had dropped off. Kim found it lying right beside him. He picked it up and went happily on his way.

At home, the little dog peeped through the square hole, saw him coming and barked a welcome. And what a merry supper they had, with the big pear cut into slices, while Mr. Kim described his adventures to the family!

About this story

“The Sneezing Colossus” is from William Elliot Griffis’s Korean Fairy Tales (1922), an American writer’s retelling of stories he gathered about Korea. Griffis builds this episode around a colossal Buddhist image, described in his text as a mir-yek; its enormous features make the climbing and sneeze possible in the fantasy.

This is a light, comic tale. A lazy man gets more than he bargained for, but in the end the giant statue’s sneeze gives him just what he wanted.

Read the original: Korean Fairy Tales (Project Gutenberg)

Best for ages 6–8 — a lazy dad, a giant pear and a stone Buddha with a very ticklish nose.

A lucky result does not settle the opening problem

Kim works hard to reach the pear once he sees it, although he has avoided steady work at home. The sneeze rewards his effort accidentally. The family gets a happy meal and a story, but nothing says how tomorrow’s food will be found. That gap keeps the ending from proving that waiting for luck is a reliable plan.

Compare two kinds of effort

List what Kim does on the statue and what his wife does while he is away. Write one next-day task he could take on that would share the household work.

Questions to ask

• Why did Mr. Kim go up into the mountains?
• How did he try to reach the pear?
• What made the stone giant sneeze?

Related stories

• The Unmannerly Tiger — another Korean tale from Griffis
• The Man Who Lost His Legs — a Korean giant of a much scarier kind
• Tokgabi and His Pranks — more Korean mischief and fun