KOREAN LITERATURE CORNER - FEB. 2025

By Josh Kim

For the month of love, we have a myth of love – The Village of the Pure Queen from Korean Folktales by Kim So-un and Frances Carpenter. 

In a distant village, there was a girl named Kang. One evening as she was gathering water, a general rode up to her surrounded by many soldiers and servants. They had traveled far and dehydration overwhelmed him. He asked Kang for water.

She filled a bowl of cold water but also placed green willow leaves inside. The general took the bowl and drank deeply, but he was annoyed to find that the willow leaves did not let him drink as quickly as he would like. He asked Kang why she inserted these leaves. She replied: “You were overheated and tired, honorable sir. If you gulped down the water too quickly, you’d have swallowed the spirits of sickness along with it.” She said the leaves forced him to drink slowly so no harm could come to him.

The general was impressed by her wisdom and fell in love. He said they would marry after the war was over. When the war finished, the general returned to the village and married Kang. After the war, the general was now known across Korea as General Yi, the famous commander and King of the Dragon Backed Country.

Kang’s wisdom assisted in the state’s problems throughout her life. When she knew she was not long for the world, she told the General to build a great kite with her name on it. When the wind took the kite into the sky, the General was to cut the kite string. Wherever the kite landed would be where her spirit would rest for eternity. 

The General did so. The kite flew high and eventually landed on a little ridge where Queen Kang’s tomb was built. This tomb was called the Pure Tomb. Bells would ring from the Pure Tomb’s temple. The General would listen to these bells with love in his heart. He thought they were like the soft voice of his departed wife.