There is no record of what happened to Choyong after that night.  He did not leave a single word behind.  His song and dance were his only message of enlightenment and liberation.  The people of Sorabol remembered the unique events of that night, however, and his song and dance have been reenacted ever since.

Inevitably, perversion has set in with the passing of time.  Choyong’s remarkable enlightenment has degenerated into a myth incorporating the earthly wishes of the masses.  It has been claimed among the populace that the lover of Choyong’s wife was in fact an evil spirit that was testing him, having heard of his noble and generous character.    Furthermore, some claim that the evil spirit was so moved by Choyong’s act of magnanimity that it knelt before him in complete submission, swearing that it would never trouble him in the future.  Moreover, people came to believe that they could avert evil and bring about blessings merely by imitating Choyong’s song and dance, or even by hanging his portrait.  There practices have continued through the ages, but there are no grounds at all for these interpretations.

Images of Choyong formerly to gates throughout Korea for protection.

Choyong, one of the oldest known Korean dance-drama traditions, dates to the Shilla dynasty (A.D. 668 – 935).  The story line follows the life of Choyong, who arrived in Shilla from another land.  The five characters in the drama wear brown masks and hats, the features of which suggest a Middle Eastern, Persian, or even a Tibetan origin.

A drawing showing the formal postions of the Ch'oyong dance.

Dancing to shamanic music, four of the characters rotate around the fifth, taking turns performing duets with the central person, then dancing in unison.  The five represent the cardinal directions, and each costume is of a different color: blue, red, white, black, or yellow.

One version of this legend from ancient Korea held that the lover Choyong found in bed with his wife was a plague spirit.  The spirit, when confronted, promised he would never enter a place that displayed Choyong’s portrait.