The Soldier of Kang-wha

There was once a soldier of Kang-wha who was the headman of his village. He was a man of low rank and seemed to have no special gifts at all.

One winter day his wife was sitting in her inner room, sewing and sulking in a fit of jealousy. It was midwinter, so he had to stay at home, and hoping to cheer her up and take her mind off her bad mood, he said, “Would you like to see me make some butterflies?”

That only made his wife angrier. She scolded him for his cheek and ignored him.

So the soldier took her workbasket, picked out scraps of silk of different colors, tucked them into his palm and closed his hand over them. He said a prayer and then threw the handful into the air. At once the room was full of beautiful butterflies, dazzling to the eye and shining in all the colors of the silk.

His wife was so amazed that she forgot her anger. A little later the soldier opened his hand and held it up, and all the butterflies flew back into it. He closed his fist tight, then opened it, and they were only scraps of silk. Only his wife saw this; no one else knew of it. Nobody had ever heard of such strange magic.

In 1637, when the Manchus took Kang-wha, everyone in the place ran for their lives, crying with fear. But the soldier stayed calmly at home, eating his meals with his wife and family as usual, and laughed at the neighbors rushing past. “The invaders won’t touch this village,” he said. “Why are you running?”

And so it turned out. The whole island was laid waste, but the soldier’s village was spared.

About this story

“The Soldier of Kang-wha” is a short tale from James Scarth Gale’s 1913 translation, Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts and Fairies, taken from the collection of Im Bang. Gale interprets the butterfly trick through an account of Taoist magic, describing imagined powers of shaping invisible elements into living things.

Kang-wha is an island near Seoul where the royal family took refuge during the Manchu invasion, and it fell in 1637. In the tale, the humble soldier’s hidden powers protect his village when the rest of the island is lost.

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

Suggested for ages 9–12: the butterfly scene is followed by an invasion and frightened people fleeing devastated villages.

A private wonder before a public danger

The silk changes into butterflies and back again, giving the wife direct evidence of magic within the tale. The later survival of the village is reported without showing a protective spell. Readers connect the episodes because they already know the soldier can do something extraordinary. That connection is an implication, not an explanation of how his protection works.

What is shown and what is suggested?

Make two columns for the butterflies and the invasion. Record what is witnessed directly in each. Then describe the link readers are invited to make between them.

Questions to ask

• Why did the soldier make the butterflies?
• What happened to the butterflies at the end of the trick?
• What does the butterfly episode lead readers to suspect about the village’s survival?

You may also like

• The Man on the Road — another Korean magician who protects people in wartime
• Yun Se-pyong, the Wizard — another Korean master of magic
• Tokgabi’s Menagerie — more Korean magic and mischief