Part 5

So as she did not know any way of getting to the top of the Ever White Mountain and of seeing the deep blue waters of the Pool, except by riding on the back of a dragon, which she sometimes dreamed of, she kept waiting and waiting for one of these flying creatures to come, yet it never came.

Cat-kin was bound to have the fairies visit her, if possible. So one day, sitting under a persimmon tree and reading a story, she held the book in one hand, while she struck the ground several times, saying earnestly:

“Earth-spirit, earth-spirit, come to me; come up and see me.”

All of a sudden the air seemed heavy with sweet perfume, and a silver mist like a cloud spread over her house and garden. Then a bright dazzling light flooded everything and there stood before her a glistening chariot, made of blue jade with golden wheels. It was drawn by milk-white horses and on a seat of shining silver sat the Western Heavenly Queen Mother herself.

Attendant upon the Mother Queen were thousands of the most beautiful maidens, who were all dressed in resplendent robes. They wore amber ornaments, and silver girdles, and necklaces of precious stones and silken robes with many tassels. Their feet were shod with gold embroidered velvet slippers, and on their heads were caps of gold studded with glittering gems. Cat-kin could hardly count the rich ornaments, necklaces, breast chains and the jade wands, like sceptres, which they held in their hands. These were shaped like lotus flowers. The faces of all these maidens were rosy, their eyes sparkled, and all had small hands and feet.

In a voice of great sweetness that sounded like music the Heavenly Queen Mother looked at Cat-kin and spoke to her, saying:

“Come forward, little maid, fear not. I shall take you with me to my palace, in the Island of Gems and give you all you want, besides showering blessings on your people, if you will come.”

Cat-kin did not feel at all timid or frightened, but came boldly forward and knelt at the base of the chariot.

The Mother Queen first touched her with her milk-white jade wand, that was carved like a lotus bud, and made the little girl rise.

In a moment more, a silver chariot, with wheels made of turquoise and drawn by two young milk-white dragons, wheeled up close to her, and the attendant lady in golden robes bade her step in.

The dragons were fierce, powerful, fire-breathing creatures, with wide spreading wings, and their bodies and tails together were of the length of whales, while their eyes darted fire. Yet Cat-kin was not at all afraid, and thought it was great fun. Then up through and far above the clouds the host of bright beings flew. They followed the Queen Mother’s chariot until, far away, they poised in mid-sky. Cat-kin was then told to look over the side of the chariot to the earth and ocean, miles and miles below. She was asked if she could recognize her father’s cottage, but she could not. The whole village looked only like a grey mass of thatched roofs, and she could pick out only the temple.

There, spread out, was the great sea, as blue as a sapphire, and in places deep green, like an emerald, but she could see no ships nor any coast or shores, nor any ranges of mountains, nor signs of the land of Korea. Nothing but ripples and waves were visible. Yet in the center of the azure sea was an island. The trees were emeralds and the roofs of the houses were of gold, and the windows diamonds. These were so full of light that no lamps were necessary.

Beautiful beings, all maidens, as lovely in garb and face as those who filled the train of the Queen Mother, walked or played, or sang in the gardens. Or swam and sported in the sapphire waves, or rowed and sailed about in boats that seemed as if made of marble, they were so white.

At a signal from the Queen the singing ceased. Then there rose up wave upon wave of sweetest melody from the players on instruments who were in the gardens below.

Cat-kin thought she heard at intervals the chorus, sounding out the words, rising upward like pulses, through the air, “Welcome lovely mortal! Our Queen invites and we greet thee! Manifold be her gifts to thee and thine! Come, thou honored among all Korean maidens! Come to us and join our band and we shall love thee as one of ourselves.”

In the wink of a falcon’s eye—so short a time it seemed—the Mother Queen and her host descended.

As the chariots touched the island, a bevy of radiant maidens came forward, some to attend the Queen Mother and some to lead Cat-kin into her own room in the palace. There the most gorgeous robes were put on her, beside a cap begemmed with glittering, precious stones of various colors, and a pair of gold-embroidered velvet slippers.

Cat-kin was surprised when one of the shining maidens set a royal tiara adorned with five gems upon her brow.

“For me?” she asked in surprise.

“Yes for you, whom the Heavenly Mother Queen would honor.”

“And what do these five gems, jade, crystal, malachite, amber and agate signify?” asked Cat-kin.

“Ah, that is not for us to tell you, but the Queen Mother ordered these. Tomorrow she will explain to you the secret of each gem.”

Cat-kin walked about freely, enjoying the lovely sights and sounds. She also ate with keen appetite and to her full of the delicacies set on the table before her. Yet never once did she feel sleepy, nor see any beds, nor hear anyone talk of retiring. She wondered what they meant when they said “tomorrow”; for she could see no sun or moon or twilight. However, she did not think long about such things, and by and by forgot all about them.

When the entire court and all the hosts of the Queen Mother’s attendants had assembled, Her Majesty’s chamberlain read the proclamation, which declared that the Queen looked with great favor upon the Korean people, and had decided to bestow great gifts upon them. For this purpose, she had selected and brought to her palace the Korean maid named Cat-kin, to endow them through this, their daughter, with five precious traits of disposition and character. In token of gracious thought and tender love, Her Majesty would now present and explain the meaning of the five precious gems. These were jade, crystal, malachite, amber, and agate.

Cat-kin kneeled down before the Queen, who placed in Cat-kin’s hands the shining gems, while an attendant fairy took them from her opened palm and placed each one of them on vermilion velvet, edged with gold. Then five maidens stood by, each with a gem laid on a cushion.

After the ceremony of presentation was over, the Queen made a speech, which told the Korean maiden’s fortune and her future.

Cat-kin would be sent back over the clouds and ocean to the King’s palace in the capital of her home land, and there be made a princess. Many nobles and king’s sons from other countries, hearing of her beauty and her wonderful visit to the Island of Gems would come to pay her court as suitors. Many would ask for her hand, to be wedded to her; but she was to marry none but the king’s son, a prince of her own people.

“Take these gems, fair maiden, and bestow their virtues and what they mean upon your people,” said the Queen. “A thousand years from now—as men count time—we together will visit Korea again.”

Then both the Queen and Cat-kin, stepping into the silver chariot, drawn by the fire-breathing dragons, plunged on and mounted up into space. First they sailed above the clouds and then dipped downwards, steering to Korea and over the mountains, bearing their precious charge to the capital. They reached the ground in a cloud and the wheels of the chariot stood still before the palace gate.

Yet before any mortal eyes could see their full forms, the Queen Mother and the dragons had disappeared, and Cat-kin stood alone, a resplendent maiden of dazzling appearance and in the robes given by the Heavenly Queen Mother, which all recognized at once as coming from the Island of Gems.

A throng of court ladies and palace attendants and a long line of nobles and princes were already waiting for the maiden, who they knew came gift-laden from the Queen Mother, of whom all had heard from childhood. The five gems were laid, each in a covered casket of perfumed wood, encrusted with gold on top and inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

Escorted into the throne room by a bevy of princesses, the Heavenly Mother’s gifts in the five caskets were reverently placed on silken fans, spread out on a table having on its top the five cushions of crimson velvet.

Then, by lot and word of the diviners, the choice of a first drawing was awarded to a prince of fair face and mien. The other four nobles, one by one and in turn, approached and each was allowed to choose one of the caskets, all of which looked alike, and none was to be opened until the possessor was in his own home.

Now these were the gifts for body and mind, of which the polished gems were the tokens. According as each prince chose and received, so with the trait, which each gem signified, would his children and posterity be endowed. In the course of centuries, these would become the national features, of twenty millions of Koreans.

One by one the caskets were opened by each prince, and therein he discovered what was a trait in the character of the Korean people. These were:

Procrastination—Putting off until tomorrow, or some other time, what ought to be done today, and keeping back not only one person but the whole nation.

Hospitality—Always glad to see friends, to entertain people, even strangers, and to take care of relations, even to the making of one’s self poor—a habit carried too far as the years and centuries rolled on.

Inexactness—The habit of not usually thinking clearly, counting correctly, or stating facts precisely, and when telling a story of “blowing a conch;” that is, of exaggerating.

Love of family—How the mothers and fathers in Korea do love their children, their kinsfolk and their relatives!

Sense of humor—A Korean can always see the funny side of things. He loves to joke and he bears his troubles well, because he likes to smile. As for the girls, they laugh as easily as the rain falls, or the flowers bloom.

And what the Queen Mother predicted came true. Just as five fingers make up the hand, so the average people among the Koreans are known by the five traits, for better or for worse.

THE MAGIC PEACH

Out on the ocean, so far away that no ship ever sailed there, is an island on which stood the seven storied palace of the royal lady, Su Wang Moo. In our language, this title means Western Queen Mother. She is always ready to help good mortals with her gifts and favors.

On this island thousands of genii wait to obey the commands of the Queen Mother. She has also chariots of silver and gold drawn by dragons, by which she sends her messages everywhere.

The genii and most of the shining maidens stay at home to fulfill the Queen’s commands. In addition to these servants, she has hundreds of azure pigeons, which she often despatches to far-off places. In their bills, or under their wings, they carry some gift or promise to make people happy.

In the mind of many a Korean maiden there rises the dream, or there wells up the hope, that some day the Western Queen Mother will send to her pretty clothes of silk, with necklaces of jewels, a handsome youth to wed her, and a silver ring for the marriage ceremony.

Then she pictures to herself how splendidly she will be arrayed and how fine she will look in the costume of a bride; how her long black hair will be done up very high, with flowers and rosettes over the crown of her head, and ermine-edged slippers will be put on her feet. She wonders how she will feel when she drinks the cups of sacramental wine that make her a wife, after which she will go with her husband and bow to the memorial tablets of his ancestors.

She goes all over in her mind the happy times she will have in her husband’s home. What she hopes for most, after all these things, is to have a kind mother-in-law. Then she will be a queen in her own little kingdom, with plenty of rice and kimchi, and cakes and goodies.

So it is that many Korean maidens go out under the blue sky to look up at the stars, or on moonlight nights scan the heavens to see if the birds are coming. Hoping to greet the azure pigeons, they put on their best clothes and watch. Many are their dreams.

Oh! how many lads also dream of the genii and of the riding on the dragon’s back, to cross the mountain ranges and the great oceans, and to visit strange, far-off countries; or, they think of the pink coat which they will wear. The pink coat shows that the lad is engaged to be married and will, when grown up, be a husband to the little girl who may be in her cradle days; for in Korea children and even babies in arms are engaged to be married to other children.

Then the boy pictures the day when the long braid of hair, which he now has to wear down his back, shall be tucked up into a topknot, like a man’s. No matter how old a bachelor may be, he must wear this boy’s braid of hair. He must not speak, or talk with his elders, without first asking permission. He must be “seen and not heard” in company, and every one treats him as a child. So the boy also waits for the azure pigeons to come, for to be engaged to be married even when quite young, or to have a wife when older, means a great deal.

Then the young husband will wear a wide brimmed hat after school and go up to the city, with his fellow villagers, to try at the literary examinations. They will all march together, under a banner tufted at the top with pheasant feathers. If he passes successfully, he will be welcomed home with a parade and band of music. By and by, he will become a magistrate and have a string of amber beads over his ear, and wear on his breast a square of gold-embroidered velvet. Servants will carry him in a palanquin and his men will carry wooden paddles to punish folks who break the laws. Then he can strut about, in starched white flowing clothes, with the common people all afraid of him. No wonder that the boy waits for the coming of the blue pigeon!

Now in the gardens of the Queen’s Palace, on the Island of Gems, there grow wonderful fruits of a rich, ripe color, brilliant with light and sheen. These, when served at the banquets and eaten, have the power of making the guest live very long, even for thousands of years.

Especially powerful is the celestial peach of longevity, which is served on little golden tables, its juice makes an old person’s body new, so that one who eats the peach will live hundreds of years.

Sometimes the Queen sends one of these fruits to her favorites on the earth. Yet no one can ever get any of these peaches, unless the Queen herself gives them, and the peach trees are always jealously guarded by genii and dragons. None, even of the Queen’s servants, or her waiting maids, or any of the genii, or dragons, can bestow the peach of longevity on mortals.

Now it happened that the Queen, hearing of the virtues of a certain king’s son, despatched one of her lovely maidens, in one of her ten thousand dragon chariots, inviting him to visit Her Majesty, in the Island of Gems. She sent a message also to the prince’s parents, telling them that their son would return before the end of the moon, which was then in its first quarter.

His anxious mother, who had a bride already picked out for her son to wed, warned him against looking too long at the lovely princesses, or pretty maids in the Queen’s Palace of Gems. In truth she had her lurking suspicions. She feared for her darling son, that, beneath their rosy faces and moon-like eyes, they were really sirens, possibly even sea monsters in female form, and might eat him up.

She also urged him to be very careful as to etiquette. He must be especially decorous, because the code of behavior and manners might not be the same as those among polite people upon the earth. Moreover, he must notice and hear everything and, when he came back home, tell her all about it.

On the other hand, the Queen of the Island of Gems warned the lovely maiden, a princess whom she sent, to beware lest the prince might fall in love with her, either on the way, or when at the island. If he tried to persuade her to marry him and to stay on the earth and not come back to the Island of Gems, and to her duties to the Queen, the palace maid would be disgraced and die early.

Although the Queen laughed when she said it, and quoted the proverb, “Don’t trust a pigeon to carry grain,” she was really very serious, and the maiden knew that it would not do to thwart the royal wishes.

So this discreet princess made a firm resolve to be very careful. She decided that when she met the prince she would be very cold in her bearing. When delivering the Queen’s invitation, she would appear to think it only a matter of business, though very important. She would not stay more than an hour in the prince’s mansion.

When the dragon chariot was returning homeward she would be silent. She would hold no conversation, nor speak a word, nor let the prince sit beside her, but she would keep in the front seat nearest the dragon, while he should ride on the great creature’s back.

So it was a very quiet journey which the prince made, while the chariot sped over the clouds, with the earth and oceans lying far beneath. Part of the time he sat on the dragon’s back, as if in a saddle, but after a while he climbed back into the chariot again, and all the time he was so thrilled with the speed and the grandeur of it all that, to tell the truth, he forgot all about the lovely princess who had brought the Queen’s message, until he found himself at the Queen’s Palace of Gems and was invited to step out of the chariot.

Soon he was seated with others, similarly honored, at the table which was loaded down with dishes of gold and silver which were heaped with the choicest viands. The guests, all in fine clothes like the prince, were waited on by shining maidens of exquisite beauty and robed in golden garments gemmed with glittering jewels of the most precious workmanship.

Upon one of these lovely creatures, a maiden who seemed to be about sixteen, not far away from where he sat, the prince cast his eyes. She was kneeling on the floor ready to do his bidding. He was so filled with admiration at her loveliness that he could hardly pay any attention to the talk at the table. Despite his mother’s warning, he made several mistakes in propriety.

Yet his appetite was very good after his long journey and he ate heartily of the delicious fare. Towards the end of the feast, feeling in a jolly mood, he picked up one of the peaches. Then he pared and sliced it, greatly enjoying its juicy nectar. Every morsel of the pulp, as he put it in his mouth, made him feel as if he were gaining a century of vigor. He knew he was lengthening his life and increasing his power to enjoy the pleasures of which he had always been very fond.

Indeed the prince was far less of a scholar and student than he ought to have been. Often at home when his teachers were all present and ready to begin the tasks of the day, the lad was still out at play. His older sister used to say laughingly of her brother, “He never let his studies interfere with his education.”

Yet every moment this maiden kneeling near him seemed to grow more charming in both face and form, dress and adornment, ease and grace of motion. Indeed she seemed the very embodiment of all loveliness, and the prince could not keep his eyes off her. He did not know that this was the effect of eating the peach of longevity, for the maiden was really no prettier at the end of the banquet than she had been at the beginning. The change was in him, not in her.

So intoxicated was the prince, that he so far forgot himself and what his mother had told him not to do, that he picked out one of the finest-looking of the peaches from its golden basket on the table and tossed it over to the pretty maiden.

On her part the maid of honor had herself been so wrapped up in admiration of the young and princely guest, that when he motioned that he was about to toss a peach to her she broke the rule of the Palace of Gems. She threw out her hands and caught the peach deftly, as if playing ball.

The palace ladies were all horrified. They had been taught that, except to perform the duties of waiting and serving, they were to pay no attention to anything the guests might say or do. When heated with wine the guests might be only making sport of the attendants. They were to decline any personal attentions and continue in their duty of serving. But instead of averting her gaze, or bowing low with her face to the ground, or having her eyes downcast, the maid, actually threw out her hands, caught the peach and, to the horror of all who saw her, bit into it and swallowed the morsel.

What it was that happened the very next moment even the fairies could not tell or exactly remember; for a golden mist seemed to fall in the banquet hall, enveloping everything.

It happens that just here in the story a great gap occurs. At such a pause the Korean story-teller, who sits in his booth in one of the back streets of Seoul, would stop and send his boy to take up a collection from the crowd. Nor would he go on, until all had been invited to give and the coins rattled in the gourd shell.

When he began again some said it was the same story continued. Others were sure it was a new story, but that the palace maid and the prince were the same who had been in the banquet hall of the Western Queen Mother, in the Island of Gems and that the peach had never lost, since it never could lose its virtues, because given by the Queen. But such as it was, this is the way the story ran on:

More than a thousand years afterwards it was known that in the high mountains of the Ever White range lived a holy man, a hermit, who was honored, almost worshiped by the people in that region. In the summer time hundreds of pilgrims visited his hut to hear wise words about how to live and do good, and then to receive the hermit’s blessing. Even the wild beasts appeared to be tame in his presence. At any rate, they never tried to bite or devour one another, or hurt the old man or to destroy his humble shelter. The tigers, the leopards and the bears seemed to forget they had claws, or teeth; while their little cubs played peacefully with each other.

The dress of this hermit was of the ancient style of a thousand years before, of the time of the ancient dynasty of Ko.

One day while out on one of his walks this old, white-bearded hermit met a woman of fair countenance, who seemed to be quite young, for her face was unwrinkled and rosy. It appeared that she had travelled far, yet she walked with the springing step of a maiden who was still in her teens. Her dress betokened that of ages gone, for it was of the sort and fashion which are revealed in the cave pictures painted on the walls of the dolmens, or the colossal stone chambers, in which kings and mighty men were buried, ten or fifteen centuries ago, which are very many in Korea.

The hermit and maid met in the path under the tall pine tree and exchanged greetings, the lady bowing very low. Then, as she looked up in his eyes, her face became radiant with joy as if she recognized a dear friend.

The sage inquired who she was, and whether she were the wandering lady, of whom rumor spoke of having been seen during centuries, over all the nine provinces of Korea, by people who were great grandfathers, as well as by the children of that day.

Then she told her story.

She was the same palace maid, who, in the Western Queen Mother’s palace on the Island of Gems had waited upon him, once a gay prince and now the holy hermit. Then again she bowed low.

For catching and eating the peach which the princely guest had tossed to her, and thus breaking the rules of the palace, the Queen had ordered her banishment for a thousand years.