The tales provided moral teachings.  Furthermore, the recitation sites were centers for the development of the aesthetic sense and the cultivation of the children’s emotions.  In short, they gained an understanding of the traditional society, and they inherited its values.

Some of the more popular themes of the old Korean folk tales include the idea that the ancestors were great and thus to be respected; the ways that devils could be avoided; the belief that articles that had been kept a long time would, if they were discarded, be possessed by an evil spirit; and the teaching that there is a justice in which wise and good men would be repaid with the help of God, but evil ones would inevitably be punished and destroyed.

Recitation of folk tales, however, is becoming increasingly evanescent.  Because of the growing popularity of the nuclear family system in Korea, children have little opportunity to see their grandparents, at least in the role of storytellers.  Another factor is the influence of mass media, particularly radio and television, which consumes the greater part of the leisure time of children and their parents, even in farming or fishing villages.  Children who have the opportunity to hear the folk tales find this contact mostly through mass communication.  The folk tale, which is a folk tradition, is now being eroded by pop culture and mass communications.

Turning to the small collection of Korean tales presented here, the first one, “The Ant, the Cricket, and the Kingfisher,” explains the origin of the three animals’ main characteristics.  Folk tales of this kind seem to be universal, but there are few in which three animals appear simultaneously.  In adventure stories, like “The Bride’s Island,” the hero gets life-giving water or life-giving herbs—one of the most popular motifs of Korean folk tales (the same motif is found in Siberian shaman mythology, which is directly related to Korean shamanism).  A trickster tale, “Pilgrimage to Hell” satirizes a yangban (nobleman).  Such depictions of conflicts between the yangban and the common people in the Yi Dynasty are widespread in Korean folk tales, mask dances, and folk songs.  Like numerous other Korean tales, “Stingy Choi Chum-Ji” satirizes a miser, and the fate of a miserly family is described in “Jang-ja Swamp.”  “The Tiger Catching Fish” is a Korean “Aesop’s Fable” and is also a trickster tale.

The Ant, the Cricket, and the Kingfisher

Long ago an ant lived near a small river where clean waters ran.  Near his house lived a kingfisher and a cricket.  The three of them were friends and helped one another when in trouble and feasted together in good times.