Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/352

 332 Miscellanea.

are spoken of as white {jf>dkyong), black {heukyong), yellow {whang yotig), and blue {cKujig yotig).

The serpent is almost synonymous with the dragon. Fish, too, are associated with the same, for the carp may in time become the fish-dragon {o yong). It is dangerous for fishermen to venture too near a dragon-lake, as the snake with a sudden sweep of the tail may hurl them into its depths.

All flesh cannot arrive at the dragon-stage. A snake when it spends a thousand years in the mountains and a thousand years in the water, " following closely the doctrine " (io-Iak-ta) — (just what this consists in, no one can tell me, but the saying exists ; they frequently use the same in reference to disciples of Confucius) — eventually becomes a dragon.

As far as I can understand, water-spouts seen at sea are taken for dragons, and are the source of most dragon-beliefs.

Wells, too, have their dragons, and rice is thrown in to pro- pitiate them on special occasions, as on the 15th of the ist moon, or when a child is born. Here, also, as in a lake, if one is drowned the spirit of the dead takes possession of the well.

Rivers and Streams. — There are spirits, too, about rivers, that take various shapes, commonly that of a woman washing clothes in the moonlight. Sometimes it catches those who fish and drags them under deep water. Sacrifice is offered and food is thrown into the river to propitiate the spirit.

A Boatman's Prayer : " Mul-a-ssi kin-ta so-nang-nim hang-sun chal hage-hayo chu-so-so." (Woman of the waters and prince of serpents, give us a favourable voyage.)

Once, in a six-days' voyage by junk along the north shore of the Yellow Sea, in the year 1889, we were overtaken by rough weather, when immediately the sailors left caring for the junk and prepared a sacrifice of rice and fish, which, after prayer, they poured overboard in order to propitiate the sea-spirit.

Jas. S. Gale.

Wonsan, Korea, yune 2gf/i, 1899.