목도령

FolktaleKorea · East AsiaFolktaleFear 3/10

Description

A folktale from the folklore of Korea. Namu doryeong (Korean: 나무도령Master Tree) is a Korean orally transmitted folktale that tells the…

The Legend

Namudoryeong (나무도령, Master Tree) is a Korean oral tradition folktale about the son of a tree and a fairy. This story depicts how the boy, who is the son of the tree, rides on his father during a great flood to rescue animals in distress, marries the daughter of an old man, and becomes an ancestor of humanity. Namudoryeong follows the pattern of 'Jibucheonmo' (地父天母) and possesses mythological characteristics of creating a new humanity after the previous one perished in a great flood.

Variants

In other versions of Namudoryeong, he is described as the son born from the relationship between the spirit of the tree and a widow or unmarried woman without children. In some versions, the story of Namudoryeong's birth is omitted, considering that being born from a tree is difficult to accept in human experience. Additionally, there are variations regarding the animals that assist Namudoryeong, with appearances of bees, dragonflies, snakes, swallows, deer, and wild boars, in addition to ants and mosquitoes.

This article is based on the Wikipedia article "Namu doryeong" (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikipedia