[Korean Culture & Language] The woodcutter and the fairy

Hello, this is Uptempo Marketers


Do you remember the story about ‘a magpie that returned the favor(은혜 갚은 까치)’?

https://uptempom.blogspot.com/2022/01/korean-culture-language-magpie-that.html

The concept of ‘Returning favor (은혜 갚다)’ is so important in Korean culture that numerous folktales use it as the main theme.

‘The woodcutter and the fairy(선녀와 나뭇꾼)’ is another Korean folktale that reflects the culture of ‘returning favor’. 

A 30-year-old woodcutter(나뭇꾼) who was still single encountered a deer running from a hunter (30 years old used to be considered too old to be unmarried in Korea). The deer asked the woodcutter(나뭇꾼) for his assistance in it hiding from a hunter. The woodcutter(나뭇꾼) assisted it. When the hunter came to inquire about the deer, the woodcutter(나뭇꾼) pointed in the opposite direction.

The deer, who had been kept safe by the woodcutter(나뭇꾼), expressed its gratitude and insisted that it would return the favor by fulfilling his wishes. The woodcutter(나뭇꾼) asked for a wife. The deer informed him of the date and place of fairies descending from the sky to bathe.

He took the deer’s advice and went to the spring the deer told him about. After a short wait, he found fairies who had come down to bathe. As the deer instructed, he stole one of the fairies’ dresses with wings. One of the fairies couldn’t return to the sky without her dress. The woodcutter(나뭇꾼) then approached the fairy (선녀) and proposed marriage to her. Because the fairy (선녀) was unable to return home, she grew reliant on him.

There are many different endings to this story.

One of the most famous endings is where the deer warned him not to return her dress until they have had three children. However, the woodcutter(나뭇꾼) returned the dress to the fairy (선녀) after only having two children because the fairy (선녀) begged so much and said she’d return. She flew into the sky with one baby in her left arm and another in her right, never to be seen again.


Would you have returned the dress after only having two children if the fairy (선녀) begged? Would you have believed that the fairy (선녀) would return home?


How would you feel if you were the fairy (선녀)? What would be her point of view?

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