Dancers perform the Korean mask drama named after Choyong.

Such theories distort and pervert the perfectly obvious and simple truth.  This is why I had to write this story, to give a correct account, according to the records, of what really happened a long time ago.  I am convinced that if we could ask Choyong himself whether or not he was a son of the dragon-king, a shaman, or a man empowered to subjugate evil spirits, he probably would just smile and not readily oblige us with a comment.  As the old Korean saying goes, “Just smiling as an answer, one feels so free.” If obliged to answer, he perhaps would reply that what he did was simply the most proper and natural act.  As for the power to stave off evil and bring beneficial results, he probably would add that all originates from inside the human self, from within our hearts and minds, and that by liberating ourselves from greed and the obsessions that bind us, we would be able to control most of the evil in this world.

Choyong had a beautiful wife.  Sorabol, the capital of the Shilla kingdom, was at its prime.  Many pretty ladies could be seen there, but the beauty of Choyong’s bride shone brightly everywhere in its flourishing and bustling streets.

Choyong owed his marriage to his valor.  He was one of the king’s bodyguards.  One day, on a hunting expedition, Choyong single-handedly fought and killed a tiger that had threatened the king. Choyong was seriously wounded in the fight.  When he recovered, the king awarded him the beauty as a prize.

The marriage of the gallant soldier and the beauty, arranged and blessed by the king himself, was topic for delighted conversations in Sorabol for some time.  But for Choyong this was more than a prestigious marriage with a beautiful woman.  It was the first and only time in his life that he had ever had a home.

There can be no doubt that Choyong was deeply in love, in the ordinary sense of the term, with his wife.  This is evident from the agonies he would suffer before his eventual liberation.  But Choyong’s love for his wife and home perhaps was more than love as we normally talk of it.  For this was his first experience of human warmth, something that had eluded him throughout his life.

Choyong was a happy man by any standard.  He was good-looking, young, married to a fair lady, and favored by the king.