Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/349

 Miscellanea. 329

food, live chickens, money, stones, rags, &c., and passers usually bow and expectorate. On the sacred, or "shrine-tree" {tang na- mu), hang rags, that are meant as charms against evil {dk- viak-i), while stones as offerings are heaped up beneath. Some- times small images, in metal, of pigs, rats, elephants, &c., stand before the picture of the spirit.

Here is one of the prayers, in fact the one common petition, offered to the mountain spirit : " Kil so-e so-nang-nim, kil-a-rai so-nang-nim, t'oi" (expectorating) "nip-eu-sin tok to man-man ha-go-ni-wa sa-ro sa tok-eul nip-o-chi-i-ta : " i.e. " Spirit of the road, spirit beneath the road, phew ! " (giving a spit), " though your favours of the past have been unbounded, grant us some new favours for the future."

Beliefs about Mountains. — (These ideas are common to all Korea.) Mountains are all personified in Korea. They are dragons usually, and according to their formation, graves situated on them are propitious or unpropitious. It never does to build a house upon a moving {nd-ryong) or flying dragon {sdng-ryong). If the personal influences of a hill-site be too strong, there will be many goblins, and the house will come to destruction.

On May 17th, 1899, I purchased a house-site on a hill within the walls of Seoul, and the people living below the hill told me that it was called the " Cow-feeding-her-young " mountain {iva-ti- hyung). This is a propitious formation, and people are said to live long on it and prosper, so that they tell me I have a fair field for my future when I move up to Seoul.

There is always associated in the native's mind the idea of guardianship with the mountains. Seoul, the capital, has to its north its guardian mountain Sam-kak-san = \hQ. three-horned mountain. Shortly after building the former palace (from which the king escaped to the Russian Legation in February, 1896) it was found that there was a hostile mountain {ktvati-ak-san) to the south, twenty miles distant, that set fire to the palace. Geo- mancers succeeded in protecting the dynasty against this mountain by placing two stone lions or fire-eaters {Jid-ta) before the palace gates. These stone figures still stand to-day. Former capitals have always had their guardian mountains \chu-san). We find traces of this in Korea long antedating the Christian era. Graves too must have their guardian peaks {chu-pong) or the family will not prosper. A common saying in geomancy, " Dragons do not