Korean Folk Tales — Part 2: The Story of Chang To-Ryong · Cheung Puk-Chang, the Seer
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
Two more tales from 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. Part 1 heard the book's first tale, Charan; this second part continues in the book's own order with its second and fourth tales. (The third, A Story of the Fox, is set aside under this shelf's standing rules — a fox's attack in scene — and the exclusion is registered by name in our catalogue.)
The Story of Chang To-Ryong — in the days of King Chung-jong, a dirty, ugly beggar of forty begs in Bell Street, Seoul, and the proud magician Chon U-chi dismounts and prostrates himself before him in fear. A kind undergraduate befriends the beggar, mourns his corpse when it is carried out of the city — and twenty years later, lost among the hills of Chulla, is feasted by him in a palace of the genii, for Chang was no beggar but a spirit-man whose exile on earth had ended. Cheung Puk-Chang, the Seer — Gale's notes give the marvels first: a book recalled word for word from a single glance, the speech of birds and beasts understood, every envoy's language spoken in Peking without study. Then the proof: taking tea with his aunt, Puk-Chang looks south and sees her overdue servant, at that very moment, crossing Bird Pass — and getting a beating there for riding past a gentleman at dinner. The servant's own account, when he returns, matches in the smallest detail.
Chapters:
0:35 Introduction
2:27 The Story of Chang To-Ryong
16:14 Cheung Puk-Chang, the Seer
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: "The Cello's Unfinished Promise 2" (instrumental) — opening and closing theme, with a short excerpt between the stories; no music under the reading.
KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
