One tale opens a new shelf: the first story of Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts and Fairies (London and New York, 1913), translated from the Korean of Im Bang and Yi Ryuk by James S. Gale (1863–1937), who lived in Korea for many years. Billed by book, authors and translator, as Gale printed them; not a survey of all Korean tales, and no completeness is claimed for one part of fifty-three.
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
Charan — in the days of King Sung-jong, a governor's gifted son dances at his father's birthday feast with Charan, the most famous dancing girl of Pyong-an, famed for her beauty, her singing and her knowledge of the classics. For six years they are never parted. When the father's term ends and the family returns to Seoul, the son hides his heart — until a winter night at the monastery where he is studying, when he steals away and walks five hundred lee through frost and snow, begging as he goes, to find her. Charan's answer to their ruin is a plan built on books, candle-light and her own needle: the Official Examination. A romance of love, loyalty and a master hand, read exactly as printed in 1913.
The book's fifty-two remaining tales wait for the parts that follow.
Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
1:43 Charan
Im Bang and Yi Ryuk, Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts and Fairies, translated by James S. Gale (London: J. M. Dent & Sons; New York: E. P. Dutton, 1913) — public domain.
Narrated by Mira. Music: opening and closing theme, "Napoli in Fiamme 2" — heard at the introduction and the close only; the tale itself is read dry.
KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
Korean folk tales · Korean fairy tales · Im Bang · Yi Ryuk · James S. Gale · Charan · world folk tales · free audiobook
