Episode 166 – Wrongful Death

Episode 166 Show Notes

Source: Korean Folklore

• This week on MYTH, we’ll travel to Korea for a tale from when tigers used to smoke tobacco pipes. You’ll learn that even supernatural bureaucracy makes mistakes, that the king of the underworld is usually a pretty chill guy, and that you should always have proof for your post-mortem messages. Then, in Gods and Monsters, a tiger will face off against its greatest foe – a fussy baby. This is the Myths Your Teacher Hated podcast, where I tell the stories of cultures from around the world in all of their original, bloody, uncensored glory. Modern tellings of these stories have become dry and dusty, but I’ll be trying to breathe new life into them. This is Episode 166, “Wrongful Death”.  As always, this episode is not safe for work.
• This week’s story comes to us from Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts, and Fairies collected by Im Bang and Yi Ryuk in 1913. This particular story was originally set down by Pak Chom, one of the Royal Censors who died in the Imjin War of 1592 when Japan invaded Korea. In Yon-nan County in the Whang-hai Province, there lived a literary scholar whose name the narrator claims to have forgotten but more likely omitted for his own reasons. He fell ill one day, growing so sick and weak that he was unable to leave his room. Things got worse until it was all the poor man could do to lean against the arm-rest of his chair and try not to fall off. 
• He worried that he might be dying, a fear which proved well-founded when several spirit soldiers appeared from thin air. They were heavily armed and one carried a heavy chain as they spread out around the probably dying man. “The governor of the underworld has ordered your arrest. Come with us.” Ignoring his feeble protests, the spirits bound the now certainly dead man around his neck with the chain and led him away from his home. They journeyed like this with the man shackled uncomfortably for many hundreds of miles. They had by now left behind anything even vaguely familiar to the man as they at last reached a towering wall. He was led through an ornate gate and then beyond for what seemed an even longer though harder to define distance. The story doesn’t say, but I gather that this is the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead. 
• They plodded on until they came to a massive edifice that towered clear up to the heavens (which may not be an exaggeration here in the spirit world). Another gate opened before the party, with the spirit soldiers leading their prisoner into an inner courtyard. There, the man was forced to his knees and then prostrated on the ground, face down. Glancing up as best as he could without lifting his head, the man examined his surroundings. He was lying before a massive throne occupied by what could only be a king of some sort. Attendants and officers lined both sides of the great throne with scores of secretaries and soldiers carrying messages and orders to and fro. 
• In keeping with these otherworldly surroundings, the king’s appearance was truly terrible to behold, utterly inhuman. He is traditionally depicted as an enormous man with a scowling red face, bulging yellow eyes, and a long beard. Still, he had enough gravitas to draw the attention of everyone in the room like a black hole of charisma. His voice rumbled like the earth itself such that even his simplest command filled the listener with awe. The poor dead scholar felt flop sweat break out along his spine, which wasn’t a thing he’d expected to have to worry about after death. After that one quick but bowel-watering glance, he kept his face firmly pressed into the dirt and refused to look up again.
• After a minor eternity, a lower secretary scuttled forward and placed himself in front of the raised dais. He was clearly meant to speak the proclamations of this great and terrible King Yom-na (also known as Yama) since this puny mortal was not worthy of the king’s direct attention. Much like his Greek counterpart, his realm is often also known as Yom-na after its ruler. “Where do you come from, supplicant? What is your name? How old are you? How do you earn your living? Answer plainly and do not even think of trying to deceive me.” The scholar was way, way too terrified to even consider trying to lie to King Yom-na, even through an intermediary. He told the secretary his name, age, and address though all of these are omitted from the tale itself. “My family has lived for several generations in Yon-nan County in Whang-hai Province. As for me, I am so unbearably stupid and untalented that I have done nothing meaningful or noteworthy with my life. Since I was little, I’ve always heard that if you said your prayers over your beads with love and pity in your heart, then you would escape hell. Thus I have spent most of my time calling upon the Buddha and dispensing alms to the poor.”
• That…was not the answer the little secretary had expected. He checked his notes once, twice and then scuttled back over to consult with the king. They spoke privately for an excruciatingly long time before they seemed to reach an accord. The secretary scurried back to the prisoner. “Stand up, human. It seems there was a clerical error – you were not the person these nitwits were supposed to arrest. It seems that there is another man with the same name as you, and it is he that was supposed to be arrested, not you. You are free to return to the world of the living.”
• This was incredible news to the humble scholar. He bowed low in thanks for their grace and wisdom in discovering this error so swiftly. The king signaled with one mighty finger, returning the secretary to his side for another private conference. This one was much shorter. “My lord has a request for you: ‘My house, when on earth, was in this special place (that of course the story doesn’t provide except to say that it was somewhere in Seoul). When you return to the world above, I want you to take a message for me. It was a long and difficult trip to get here to the underworld, and my lovely coat was shredded  by time and by the journey. Ask my people to fashion me a new outer coat to replace this old one. If you do as I ask, I will be extremely grateful, so see that you don’t forget.’”
• The scholar bowed again. “Your majesty, I could never forget a single moment of this awe-inspiring audience and I will of course pass on your message faithfully and without fail. I fear though that the ways of our two worlds, of the dark and the light, are so different that when I repeat your words to the healers, they will think I am raving or at best that I had a very vivid dream in my near-death state. What if they refuse to listen to my words? Is there perhaps some proof of my tale that I can take back, some evidence to make sure they heed your message and make your new coat?” The king thought about this, then whispered again to his secretary.
• “You raise a good point, scholar. I will give you this as proof. When I was still on earth, one of my badges of rank that I wore had a broken edge. I placed it inside the third volume of the Book of History to repair later, but I never got around to it. No one else in the world knows of this, so your word will be proof that the message is authentic.” The scholar bowed low again. “Very wise, o King. They will surely listen to me now. And what shall I do with the new coat once it is made? No one knows the road back to this place.” “Prepare a sacrifice, offer the coat by fire, and it will reach me here.” That was simple enough, so the scholar had no more questions or objections.
• Amazed by his luck, which was simultaneously terrible and incredible, the scholar bowed to his hosts and left the audience with the king. Accompanied by two soldiers – without the chains this time – he headed back the way he had come. “So since we’re all friendly-like now, can I ask a question? Who was that magnificent figure seated on that elegant throne?” “That is King Yom-na, Lord of the Underworld.” The translation I have actually gives his name as Pak Oo, but I have not been able to find any other references to this name in Korean mythology (though I’d love to know if I’ve missed something); my best guess is that this is the name that Yom-na uses in the mortal world to avoid going around outing himself as a literal god – or maybe the story teller based it on a real person he knew as a way of sucking up to his family. I’ll be sticking with Yom-na, which is the name given in the story’s title, except when talking about his life on earth. 
• The trio soon arrived back at the banks of the great river. “Okay, so like how do we cross over this now? Is there a bridge somewhaaa!” Without waiting for the scholar to finish his question, the soldiers shoved him unceremoniously into the water. He sank unnaturally fast into the water and everything went black. The scholar suddenly gasped himself awake, sitting up to find himself once more in the chair in his own house. He had been dead for three days (and apparently, no one had come to check on him in all that time, which is a little sad).
• Having now recovered from his mysterious illness (which appears to have been a supernatural arrest warrant), he packed up his things and headed for Seoul. He followed the King’s directions to a grand house, where the scholar asked around for the owner’s name. He wasn’t exactly surprised to discover that it did indeed belong to Pak Oo, who had two sons in the city. Both had graduated and now held prestigious positions in the government. The scholar waited for the sons to return home that evening and asked for an audience, but the gatekeeper refused the man entry. To be fair, he did look like death warmed over since he had just, you know, died. He stood there helplessly until after sundown wondering how to deliver his message. As luck would have it, an elderly servant left the house just then and made his way in the scholar’s general direction. 
• “Excuse me sir, a moment please! I have been trying to get in to see the good Pak brothers to deliver a message from their father, but have not been able to get the gatekeeper to let me through. Could you let the brothers know that I wish to see them and to deliver my message?” The servant was a little taken aback, but he could sense the earnestness and sincerity in the scholar’s tone and so he promised to do so. And sure enough, upon returning from whatever errand he had set out on, he did just that. It wasn’t very much later that the Pak brothers summoned the scholar inside for a chat.
• “Okay stranger, you have our attention. Who are you and why have you sought us out?” The scholar provided them with his name and his home (which we are still not given) before getting to the crux of the issue. “Three days ago, I died.” “You died.” “Well, I got better. See, I was taken down to the underworld but it turned out to be a case of mistaken identity. It was someone else with my name that was supposed to have died, so they sent me back. The King of that place though is your father and he sent me back with a request. His old coat is worn and tattered, so he’d like you to order a new one. He said you’d know his style and measurements.”
• The two brothers scowled furiously, rising to their feet in unison. “I don’t know what kind of scam you’re trying to pull, you bastard, but it’s over. Get the fuck out of our house! How dare a sickly scarecrow like you come into our home and pretend to have messages from beyond! This is a bunch of bullshit. Someone toss him out on his ass!” “Wait, wait! I know it sounds impossible, which is why I asked your father for proof. Something only he would know that there is no possible way for me to have discovered except directly from him. Just hear me out. If you still don’t believe after that, I will throw myself out.”
• The brothers were still incredibly irritated but they paused to hold a private council full of angry whispers. Finally, they turned back to face the scholar. “Alright, scarecrow, show us this ‘proof’. What could you possibly have to back up this ridiculous story?” “Go into your father’s library and find the third volume of the Book of History. Inside, you will find one of his badges of rank with a broken edge. He placed it there for safe keeping, intending to have it mended but never got around to it.” The brothers lost some of their anger. That was…incredibly specific. They had expected some vague cold reading to try and guess a fact that was hardly secret, but this was something else entirely. This scholar had certainly never been in their house before to see for himself, and anyone else who had found the badge would certainly have taken it out of the book since such items were quite valuable. The brothers had turned the house upside down looking for it after their father’s death, knowing that one badge was missing, but had never found it. Hesitantly, they went into the library and pulled Volume 3. Sure enough, a badge with a broken edge was wedged between the pages where it had clearly been for some time. 
• They now accepted his statement as undeniably true. They all entered into a period of mourning, or possibly a time of somber reflection on their dear departed ancestor. The women of the family were called in to speak with the scholar to ask after the specific coat Pak Oo had been wearing in the afterlife. In short order, they made a duplicate of the worn coat and offered it up by fire on the ancestral altar. 
• Three days after this sacrifice, the scholar dreamed, as did the Pak family. In this shared dream that was more like a vision, the King of the Underworld came to them and thanked them for making his new coat so promptly and so well. When they all awoke, what little nagging doubt the Pak family had still had was gone, and they invited the scholar to live with them as an honored guest. The three men became fast friends in the years thereafter, making the scholar’s accidental death one of the luckiest things that ever happened to him. The author Im Bang states that he heard this story at Hai-ju from Choi Yu, a graduate. He claimed that Pak Oo was the great grandson of Minister Pak Chom. One of them (it’s not clear if he’s referring to Oo or Chom) was reputed to be an honest minister, just and well-loved by the people and the Governor. That’s why I suspect that the chosen name for the king of the dead might have been a bit of brown-nosing from a government flunky. Either way, the wrong man is alive and thriving and the right man is assumedly dead and suffering for whatever crimes dictated supernatural execution, which means it’s time for Gods and Monsters. This is a segment where I get into a little more detail about the personalities and history of one of the gods or monsters from this week’s pantheon that was not discussed in the main story. This week’s cautionary tale is the tiger and the persimmon.
• The version that I’ll be using comes from Korean Folk Tales: In the Old, Old Days When Tigers Smoked Tobacco Pipes, collected by Heinz Insu Fenkl in 2008. For context, much like western folktales often start ‘once upon a time’, Korean folktales often start ‘back in the old days, when tigers still smoked’. Anyway, back in said old days, there was a quiet village that lay deep in the mountains. This village lay a long way from any other human habitation and so the mountains were a very wild place full of equally wild beasts. And by far the wildest of all was a fearsome tiger who ruled over that rocky kingdom. He was a terrible monster whose roar made every creature for miles around stop dead and tremble, hoping the tiger wasn’t coming for them. Our tale begins on a snowy winter’s evening when this fierce tiger was feeling rumbly in his tumbly and looking for a snack. 
• He knew that the little village often had food even in the dead of winter, so it was there he slunk to first. As he prowled through the streets, he heard a baby crying its little baby lungs out through the window of one of the houses. The child sounded exhausted, like it had been throwing this particular tantrum for some time and yet showed no signs of quieting down any time soon. This caterwauling very quickly got on the apex predator’s nerves. “What an obnoxious little brat. He’s barely more than a mouthful, but eating him will be a public service. I’ll get a bite and the village will get some peace and quiet.” Slipping over to the window, he crouched down and prepared to make his deadly pounce when sudden movement gave him pause.
• It was the child’s mother pacing around the room. She was clearly at wit’s end and had tried any number of soothing methods to get her screaming baby to go to sleep. She pointed desperately to a corner of the room and the tiger crouched lower, afraid he would be spotted. “Look hun, a fox! Stop crying or he’ll bound over here and eat you up!” The baby paid this warning no mind at all, but simply kept on crying at full volume. She tried cooing at the baby, distracting it with a toy, and bouncing the baby on her knee, but nothing helped. At wit’s end, she tried her failed strategy again. “Look hun, a bear! He’s opening his jaws to eat you up!” I’m not even sure if this baby is old enough to understand what this poor mother is saying, let alone understand that it should be quiet to avoid attracting a predator’s attention, but I don’t blame a sleep-deprived mother for trying a hail mary.
• The baby was no more concerned about the fictional bear than it had been about the fox, and it kept right on wailing. The baby might not understand, but apparently the tiger very much did. “How strange. What sort of human child is not afraid of foxes or bears? This must be one hell of a brave kid. I mean, foxes are no big deal for me but even I, a fearsome tiger, wouldn’t want to fight a bear without a very good reason.” He was impressed in spite of himself, but the rumbling in his belly reminded him why he was here. Brave or not, this child would still make a decent appetizer. “Look hun, that big tiger from the mountains is right outside the window! Stop crying, or he’ll hear you and come devour you!” 
• To be clear here, I’m pretty sure that the mother is just upping her failed ‘be quiet or the monster will eat you’ gambit. She has no idea that said tiger really is right outside the window and is very much considering eating the child for realsies. I imagine she’d feel real bad about it if it actually happened. Instead of pouncing however, the tiger decided to gloat a little. “Well now, she’s finally come to a real threat. Let’s see just how scared he is of big, bad me before I eat him.” And with that thought in mind, he crept forward to peer through the window, hoping to see the look of abject terror in his prey’s eyes. Instead, he saw that baby still crying its eyes out without any twinge of the slightest fear. 
• In all his long years of stalking this mountain, the tiger had never come across any creature who was not scared of him and certainly no human. Hell, the very trees trembled at his approach and the stones themselves cracked in terror at the pad of his paw. And yet this child was not afraid. What manner of creature was not afraid of 500 lbs of lethal muscle? The tiger was troubled by this question but, at the end of the day, he wasn’t a philosopher, he was a fucking tiger. The best way to answer this conundrum was to slaughter and eat the child. That would neatly solve the dilemma as far as the tiger was concerned. 
• He crouched down again, once more resolved to pounce when the mother dashed out of sight. From a corner of the room, she called out “Look hun, a persimmon!” At that, the baby’s wailing cut off mid-cry. The silence hung heavy around the snow-capped village. For the first time in his life, the tiger was afraid. “What the fuck is a persimmon? It must be a truly terrifying creature if it’s worse than a fox, a bear, or even a tiger! Fuck this shit. That baby might be a tender morsel, but it’s not worth tangling with whatever the hell a persimmon is. I can find easier prey.” With a single great bound, the tiger leapt over the village wall and vanished back into the mountains. 
• For just a little bit of context, the fruit in this story is usually specifically as flower persimmons – a cross between a fig and a date that is usually served dried. The original Korean doesn’t specify whether the mother offers her child a single fruit or several of them skewered together on a rope, which is a traditional presentation. For simplicity, the translator chose to use a single persimmon as the tiger’s great foe. 
• That’s it for this episode of Myths Your Teacher Hated.  Keep up with new episodes on our Facebook page, on iTunes, on TuneIn, on Vurbl, and on Spotify, or you can follow us on Instagram as MythsYourTeacherHatedPod, on Tumblr as MythsYourTeacherHated, and on Bluesky as MythsPodcast.  You can also find news and episodes on our website at myths your teacher hated dot com. If you have any questions, any gods or monsters you’d want to learn about, or any ideas for future stories that you’d like to hear, feel free to drop me a line.  I’m trying to pull as much material from as many different cultures as possible, but there are all sorts of stories I’ve never heard, so suggestions are appreciated.  The theme music is by Tiny Cheese Puff. 
• I’ve recently launched a brand-new podcast that I’ve been working on for a while. It’s an actual play table-top role playing game show using a variety of systems to tell short arcs (roughly three to five episodes per story) influenced by some of our favorite classic cartoons. The first story of this new show, Saturday Morning Roleplay, is the Recyclors, a mixture of the Transformers and Captain Planet using the Cartoon Action Hour system. The first episode has dropped, so you can find it on Facebook at Saturday Morning RPG or your favorite pod-catcher at Saturday Morning Roleplay. Check it out!
• Next time, it’s that most wonderful time of year: the annual Halloween special. You’ll discover what evil lurks in a haunted castle, what to do when confronted with the corpses of seven hanged men, and how to bowl competitively against zombies. Then, in Gods and Monsters, a terrible demon stalks the night – half horse, half man, all flayed terror. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.