Tales of a Korean Grandmother. Frances Carpenter

magic sticks, I can take my revenge upon that selfish Prime Minister.'

      "Going back to the hut of the old country couple, he was welcomed as before. But this time, as soon as they were asleep, he began his search for the four magic sticks. Long before the sun rose and the cock crew, Cho crept out of the house with the sticks hidden in his sleeve. All the way back to Seoul, lest he should forget, he kept saying to himself over and over again, 'Sticks and turnips! Sticks and turnips! That is the secret."

      "Now Cho knew well the sleeping room of the official. The gates were unlocked, and the doors stood wide open. In the bright moonlight he had no trouble at all in creeping in to his victim.

      "With two of the little sticks he began to tap the sleeping Prime Minister. With wicked delight he watched the man's hands turn into hoofs and horns sprout from his forehead. But the Minister began to stir before Cho could use the other two sticks on his legs. He had to hurry away with his task only half done.

      "When the moon gave place to the sun in the heavens, there was panic in the Minister's household. 'Our Master can only bellow like an ox. There are horns on his head and hoofs where his hands should be. His head and his shoulders are covered with ox hide.' This awful news spread over the countryside like leaves in an autumn wind.

      "The servants ran forth to summon a famous doctor. He came in his fine chair, borne on the shoulders of four men. But he could do nothing for the bewitched Minister.

      "They next sent for a sorceress, the most famous mudang in all the city. Out at the grave of the Minister's ancestors she wailed and she howled, she danced and she rolled about on the ground. She prayed and she prayed, but no help came to the Minister, who now was half ox.

      "It was then that the rice farmer Cho arrived once again at the Prime Minister's gate. He pretended to be surprised and shocked when he heard of the great man's curious plight.

      "'I can cure the Great Man,' he said to the Prime Minister when the family led him in to see the ox-man. We had a case once like yours in my village. I surely can cure you, but the price is the position for which I have begged you so long.'

      "The ox-man bellowed consent, and the family promised that whatever Cho asked should be given him. Then the rice farmer went out to the market. He bought several turnips, which he dried in an oven until they could be ground to a powder. Everyone gathered to watch the Prime Minister lap up the turnip medicine' with his great ox's tongue. There were cries of delight when the horns and the hoofs grew smaller and smaller. Together with the ox head and hide, they soon disappeared.

      "As soon as the Prime Minister was restored to his former self, he brought forth many strings of cash for his savior. Cho was given an important position at the court. He was granted the right to wear an official's hat with a jade button in his topknot. An official's gown, embroidered with the golden dragon, was brought for him. A tiger's skin covered the roof of his sedan chair. Fame and fortune were his, and all because of his finding the curious secret of the magic 'Sticks and turnips!'"

      THE

       TIGER

       AND

       THE

       PUPPY

      THAT hole in our gate is a very good thing, Halmoni," Yong Tu said when his grandmother had finished her tale. "It lets Dog pass through, but it keeps bad people out."

      "Yé, Dragon Head," the old woman replied. "And it's too small for a tiger. That's what the puppy found out. By means of the doghole he saved his village when all the wise men and all the brave hunters had failed."

      The children moved closer to their grandmother. Here was a new story about a tiger. There was nothing that made the shivers go up and down their backs so delightfully as tales about this mighty King of the Mountains.

      Korean tigers are larger than their brothers in warmer countries. The soft fur of their tawny coats is thicker and longer, so as to protect them from the sharp winter cold of the high mountain sides on which they live.

      Especially in the north, in those times, these huge yellow-and-black beasts were the terror of the countrysides. In the summer they fed upon the mountain deer and the little sucklings of the wild boar. But when the winter came and game was scarce in those rocky hills, the tigers crept down into the valleys. They prowled through the villages and even crept into the cities. Yong Tu and Ok Cha could themselves remember when a tiger once made its way into the very courtyards of the Emperor's palace in Seoul.

      "To this village in the north," Halmoni began her story, "there came one winter a great tiger, far bigger than any those people ever had seen. Strong was this beast, strong enough to carry off a grown man. And carry off a man it did, a man who was foolish enough to go out on the village street after night had fallen. Cows were not safe from that tiger, and pigs disappeared unless they were shut up tight inside the strong walls of the village courtyards.

      "'We must set traps for Mountain Uncle,' said the head official of the village. And they dug a pit at each end of the village street. Over these deep yawning holes they laid small logs and branches. They covered them lightly with earth and leaves, to deceive the great beast. When he walked across them, he would surely fall in.

      "But the tiger seemed to know about the hidden traps. He did not walk across them. Even when they were baited with live pigs, he did not go near them. Yet the village people could tell that he still came. The head official himself was frightened almost out of his wits by the sound of that tiger clawing away at the grass thatch on his roof. Only by good luck and by shouting, and by beating on brass pots, did he succeed in driving the great beast away.