With Korea being a focus for PaperTigers, I’ve chosen a book called In the Moonlight Mist retold by Daniel San Souci (illus. Eujin Kim Neilan) published in 1999. This delightfully illustrated picture book is a retelling of a folktale about a virtuous woodcutter who saves the life of a deer from hunters. The deer rewards him with the knowledge of how to attain a wife. There is a pond in which heavenly maidens bathe; if the woodcutter hides the clothes of one of the maiden’s, he will have her as his wife. Troubled by having to commit such trickery, the woodcutter consults his ageing mother about what to do. She advises her son to do as the deer instructs. Luckily for the woodcutter, the heavenly maiden whom he selects falls in love with him. But such a union, of course, cannot last and soon, the maiden begins to pine for home. What will the woodcutter do?
Folktales like this one often illustrate culturally-related family dilemmas – in this case, the woodcutter is faced with what he feels he must do for his wife and what he must also do for his aged mother. What is the right decision? What is the virtuous action? Who does Heaven reward? These are the many questions this simple folktale poses. Folktales are rich cultural repositories of narrative wisdom from which the modern day reader can glean much knowledge. Their retelling, therefore, is an important contribution to cultural understanding world-wide, especially for children.
Are there folktales you were fond of reading when you were a child? Where did you find them? What folktales have you read to your children?