Summary
: A filial
child who boiled a corpse for his parent
Title
: Legend about the filial child
of Geodu-ri, Dongnae-myeon, Chuncheon city
Descriptions
: Before a word, ‘ filial
child’, was used for the name of a
village called ‘a filial child village’,
in the old times, there lived a bachelor
who served a lone mother. The bachelor served
his lone mother with all his hearts. One
day, his lone mother lied down due to sickness.
The bachelor obtained medicines and gave
them to his lone mother, while putting off
all other works.
However, the illness of his lone mother
got worse increasingly. Since the bachelor
devoted his all efforts to cure the illness
of the mother, he grew lean day by day.
One day, the bachelor fell asleep next to
the mother since he was too much exhausted.
While clouds swarmed and then were scattered,
an old man with long white hairs appeared.
The old man said clearly.
"Go to Mt. Daeroyngsan. There will
be three corpses in the valley. Cut off
the neck of the corpse placed in the middle
of three corpses and boil it until it is
reduced, and then serve it to your mother."
After finishing saying, the old man disappeared,
and the bachelor woke up.
That night, the bachelor finally found out
the place where three corpses were laid
down,
after he wandered about in the valley in
darkness. The bachelor cut off the neck
of the corpse in the middle of the three
corpses even without being scared. And he
packed it to come back to his home, and
boiled it in the cauldron. In the middle
of the night, after the mother drank the
water produced by boiling the head of the
corpse, she regained healthy complexion.
The next day, the bachelor opened the cauldron,
and there was a root of the mountain ginseng!
Current Geodu-ri, Dongnae-myeon is the place
where the bachelor carried away the
head of the corpse. At first, its name was
Geosu-ri but afterwards it was changed to
Geodu-ri.
This story does not finish with this. The
mother, who recovered, said that she wanted
to eat strawberries. The bachelor went to
Mt. Daeryongsan again. However, it was not
possible that there were strawberries in
the middle of winter. In the ravine, only
snowstorms were blowing violently. When
the bachelor was exhausted shivering with
chills, in the opposite ravine, strange
energies appeared, and crimson color lights
blinked as a bundle in white snows, like
an illusion.
The bachelor ran to there, and he found
that it were the strawberries. The bachelor
worshiped with joined hands full of delights
and picked the strawberries.
On the way down to his home, he lost his
way in the dark forest where a snowstorm
blew. To make it worse, a tiger appeared
with its two eyes emitting lights in darkness.
The bachelor made all efforts to come to,
but he could not overcome his feelings of
neck burning and body chilling. However,
to be strange, with docile gestures, the
tiger came to the bachelor, lied on its
face, and made a feint of asking him to
ride on its back. Carrying the bachelor
on its back, the tiger conveyed him to his
home, and then it disappeared.
When this thing was known to the world,
the nation regarded it as admirable, so
the nation honored him by building the filial
child front gate in the village where the
bachelor lived. From then, people called
the village the street of filial child gate.
This place is the very Hyoja-dong(filial
child village) of Chuncheon. The filial
child front gate used to be located in the
place of the current Chuncheon Post Office.
According to some record, the hero of this
legend is Ban Hi-Yeon of the Choseon period.
It is said that when his mother was sick,
he prayed, “Please enable my mother
to live longer by sharing years, for which
I will live in the future, with her”,
and this pray was effective.
