Page:The passing of Korea.djvu/416

 other way. The following indicates very imperfectly a Korean labour song:



The leader uses mostly a certain set formula, but now and again he will improvise in a most amusing way, to the great delight of the men. They all seem to be in good humour, and are apparently able to make their work seem like play.

In connection with music we must take up the subject of Korean poetry, since this forms the subject matter of their vocal music.

Dialect stories are interesting because of their raciness, due to oddities of idiom and pronunciation; but these peculiarities are not felt, of course, by the people of whom it is the ordinary mode of speech. The humour of most dialect stories is of that low order which rests simply upon incongruity. So it is that we are sometimes deceived when it comes to the poetry of other peoples, or even to the life, customs and manners of other