KOREAN TIGERS

The Legend of Dan-gun
In the ancient times, Hwan-In ruled the heaven. He loved his son, Hwan- ung who was a clever, compassionate and consrtuctive man. One day Hwan-Ung pleaded with his father to let him go to the earth and rule Korea. Hwan-In said yes and sent him along with Pung-beg ( the earl of wind), U-sa (the chancellor of rain), and Un-sa ( the chancellor ot clouds). The ministers were able to control rain, wind, clouds, and all natural elements. Meanwhile a bear and a tiger lived on the earth in a cave near a sandalwood tree and wanted to become human. Hwan-ung told them that to become humans they will to live in a dark cave for 100 days and eat only garlic and mugwor. The bear lived in the cave but the tiger was extremely rest-less and ran away. The bear became a beautiful woman, married Hwan-Ung waws made the Queen. Soon she gave birth to a prince, Dan-gun or the Sandalwood king. Dan-gun regined as the first human king of the North Korea.
Koreans believe that the tiger still roams the mountains. Though the tiger did not become a human, even today people’ affection for the tiger is special. The tiger is seen as brave and scared..

The mountain Spirit
In ancient times the tiger was messenger of the mountain spirit, San Shin.
The matchmaking mountain spirit.
Once upon a time there lived a rich man Kim, who had a beauitful daughter name Ok-bun.Ok-bun became friend with a poor boy P’al-bong. Both of them were very close friends. As they got older, Ok-bun’s father realized that they loved each other and wanted to get married. Kims decided to marry his daughter to Tol-swae, who was also a nobleman. Kim wanted to get her married quickly and arranged for the engagement and set an early wedding date. Both Ok-bun and P’al-bong felt very sad. On the wedding day when the bridgegoom entered the bridal chamber, where Ok-bun was waiting for him, a tiger took away Ok-bun.
The tiger dropped Ok-bun at P’al bong’s door. In the meantime, Tol-sware searched to look for Ok-bun. He thought she had surely been killed by the tiger. When everybody found Ok-bun then everybody nodded and said that it was the mountain spirit, San-shin, at this matchmaking again and that no human should interfere. So a marriage between the two childhood sweethearts was arranged and they lived happily ever after.