Page:The passing of Korea.djvu/511

 and simple, and have little to do with human destiny, except as they are sacrificed to and asked to give good luck. They represent the good fairies and are not propitiated, but simply asked to give blessing or help. The spirits of disease and disaster are commonly considered nature-gods as well, and not of human origin. They require to be propitiated or else exorcised, which ceremony it is the office of the tnudang or pansu to perform. These spirits all go under the name kiL'isin or kwcesin. But there is another class, called tokgabi, which correspond to the malignant imps of our own folk-lore. They are always up to pranks, and in mischief they find their greatest delight. They fly about the kitchen and knock over the kettles and pans; they seize the goodman by the top-knot and cut it off and fly away; they make the kettle cover fall into the kettle. All these and a long list of other tricks they play about the house. They like company, and will not go away and live in a desert place by themselves. If a miser has buried some money, they may watch the place and haunt it, so that no one else will dare to live there, though the imps themselves can get no good from the money. But the most malignant spirits of all are the disembodied souls of those men who have met a violent death or who have been grievously wronged and have died without obtaining revenge. Ordinarily these are supposed to have been good people while they were living, and their present deplorable state is not a punishment for past misdeeds, but they are in somewhat the same condition that the ancient Greek thought the soul of the unburied was in. There is something that must be done before the spirit can get rest; it must be "laid." The spirit seems to think that it must vex and trouble people until they effect this. There are thousands of spirits who are just waiting for someone to do them an injury, so that they may have an opportunity to play their pranks upon him. The person who succeeds in steering clear of all these traps and pitfalls cannot become the object of their persecution.

It is important to note that while these shadowy beings have