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Myths and Legends from Korea: An Annotated Compendium of Ancient and Modern Materials. By JAMES HUNTLEY GRAYSON. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 2001. xx, 454 pp. $65.00 (cloth).
Myths and Legends from Korea is a compendium of two sorts of material: myths and legends culled from medieval Korean sources written in hanmun (Classical Chinese) and modern folktales of oral origin chosen from sources published in modern Korean, Japanese, English, or Russian. The purpose of this compendium is "to illustrate how certain tales and narrative motifs from the ancient period have persisted down to the present day in the oral literature of the Korean people, and to show how the cultural ethos of a period is reflected in its folklore." Each myth or tale is accompanied by a list of sources, commentary discussing its thematic structure or narrative function, and for the legends and folktales, a list of parallel motifs in a variety of folklore indices. After a brief introduction that explains the author's methodology and intentions, the main body of the text is divided into three sections labeled "Foundation Myths," "Legends and Tales from the Ancient Period," and "Folktales from the Modern Period." Sixteen appendices supply, among other things, motif indices to Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and international folktales. As the issues of sources and representation differ for each section, I will deal with each section separately.
The section on foundation myths provides a convenient and fairly comprehensive compendium of the foundations myths of Tan'gun Choson, Puyo, Koguryo, Silla, Paekche, Kaya, and Koryo filled out with comparative myths from Japan, Liao, Chin, Tungus, Ainu, and similar peoples. (As is conventional these days the Kija and Wiman myths are omitted.) The texts for most of the Korean myths are found in...