Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/145

 Chaptee v. GAOGOWLI. The history of the " Three Kingdoms '* of China in the third century, A.C., states that 1,000 li north of Huentoo, and 1,400 li north-east of Liaotung city, (the present Liaoyang,) was the king- dom of FoOYU. To its north again was the kingdom of Gaoli,* in times so ancient, that even Chinese writers mention it with a degree of scepticism. Tradition said that the first king of this northern Gaoli, had a maid slave who was found to be with child. The king desired the death of the boy who was bom, but the mother said that she had conceived him by an influence which came upon her, and which she felt to be like air (chi), as if of the form of a hen's egg. The king, at once afraid to kill, and fearing to keep alive a prodigy like this, which boded him no good, had the child cast into the pig-yard, whereinto refuse and filth of all kinds were thrown. But the swine breathed into the boy's nostrils, and thus kept him in life. As the child still lived when he should have died, he was next banished into the stables; but the horses followed the example of the swine, and sustained him with their breatL Because he was not thus got rid of, the king ordered the mother to haye him into the palace to be nourished, for the fates evidently determined to keep him in life. The name given to the boy was Doong Mvng, "Eastern Brightness;" and when grown, he was made Master or Feeder of the horse to his majesty. He became a most expert archer, which again made the king seek his death, lest he should revolt and take the kingdom; — so that the kingdom must have been of veiy inconsiderable dimensions, if one skilful archer could the OaoU of Corea.
 * The Cbinese characters in which the name is written are wholly different from