The Wild-Cat Woman

Kim Su-ik, who later became magistrate of the island of Quelpart, lived just inside the South Gate of Seoul. As a young man, he used to study Chinese every day until late at night. One night he felt hungry and called to his wife to bring him something to eat.

“There’s nothing in the house but seven or eight chestnuts,” she answered. “Shall I roast them and bring them to you?”

“Good,” said Kim. “Bring them.”

The servants were all asleep, with nobody awake to answer a call, so his wife went to the kitchen herself, lit a fire and roasted the chestnuts while Kim waited.

After a little while she came in with a small basket of chestnuts, roasted and ready. Kim ate them and enjoyed them very much, while she sat in front of his desk and waited.

Suddenly the door opened and another person walked in. Kim looked up, and there stood an exact copy of his wife, holding a basket of roasted chestnuts! In the lamplight, the two women looked perfectly alike. They stared at each other in alarm. “What’s happened? Who are you?” each one cried.

Kim took the second basket of chestnuts and put it down. Then he grabbed both women firmly, the first by her right hand and the second by her left, and held on tight all night long.

At last the roosters crowed and the eastern sky grew light. The one whose right hand he was holding said, “Why are you holding me like this? It hurts. Let me go!” She shook and tugged, but Kim held on all the tighter. After a struggle, she fell to the floor and suddenly turned into a wild cat.

Kim was so startled and frightened that he let go, and the wild cat dashed out through the door. The source narrator ends by regretting that he did not keep hold of the creature.

About this story

“The Wild-Cat Woman” comes from Im Bang’s collection as translated by James Scarth Gale in Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts and Fairies (1913). Kim Su-ik was a real scholar of the 1600s who followed his King into the mountain fortress of Namhan during the Manchu invasion.

Im Bang ends with a note of his own. He says he had read many Chinese stories of foxes turning into women to trick people, but never one about a wild cat, and he wonders by what law such creatures change their shape. Some said foxes carried a magic charm, he writes, but could that explain the wild cat too?

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

Suggested for ages 9–12 with an adult: includes frightening impersonation and both women being forcibly held all night.

The second basket changes the first

The first arrival seems ordinary until the second woman appears with matching food. That repeated object turns a familiar household scene into a mystery. Dawn finally distinguishes the visitors through a visible transformation. Kim’s method nevertheless restrains his real wife as well as the impostor; a successful discovery does not erase that cost.

Track what the reader knows

Draw the first basket, the second basket and the dawn scene. Under each, write one fact readers know and one question still unanswered. Explain why the final transformation supplies stronger evidence than the identical appearances.

Questions to ask

• How did Kim know something strange was happening?
• Why do you think he held on to both women all night?
• What gave the wild cat away in the end?

Related stories

• A Story of the Fox — a Korean fox that takes human form
• The Old Woman Who Became a Goblin — another shape-changer from Im Bang
• The Snake’s Revenge — another eerie Korean tale