Page:The passing of Korea.djvu/475

 Of this mass of material, in the small space here available, we can give only the merest outline, a rapid inventory.

For convenience we may group Korean folk-tales under six heads, - Confucian, Buddhistic, shamanistic, legendary, mythical and general.

Williams defines Confucianism as "the political morality which was taught by Confucius and his disciples and which forms the basis of Chinese jurisprudence. It can hardly be called a religion, as it does not inculcate the worship of any god." In other words, it stops short at ethical boundaries and does not concern itself with spiritual relations. The point at issue between Confucianism and Buddhism is that the latter affirms that the present life is conditioned by a past one and determines the condition in a future one, while Confucianism confines itself to the deciding of questions of conduct beginning with birth and ending with death. It is to be expected, therefore, that, like Judaism in the days of its decadence, every probable phase and aspect of human life will be discussed, and a rule of conduct laid down. This is done largely by allegory, and we find in Korea, as in China, a mass of stories illustrating the line of conduct to be followed under a great variety of circumstances. These stories omit all mention of the more recondite tenets of Confucianism, and deal exclusively with the application of a few self-evident ethical principles of conduct. They all cluster about and are slavish imitations of a printed volume of stories called the O-ryun Hang-sil, or " The Five Principles of Conduct." This has been borrowed mainly from China, and the tales it contains are as conventional and as insipid as any other form of Chinese inspiration. As this is a written volume which has a definite place in literature, it may not perhaps be considered strictly as folk-lore, but the great number of tales based on it, giving simple variations of the same threadbare themes, have become woven into the fabric of Korean folk-lore and have produced a distinct impression, but rather of an academic than a genuinely moral character. Following the lead of this book, Korean folk