Free Tales of a Korean Grandmother by Frances Carpenter

plight, there came into his gates a procession such as had never been seen in his courts. Horses bearing wild boars and tender young deer; fish of all kinds; wild ducks and more game than the guests could possibly eat.
    "At the head of the procession was a chair covered with tiger skins and borne by sixteen men. In it rode a splendid young man. You can guess the yangban was surprised when he learned that this shining Prince was in truth his youngest daughter's despised husband, who had worn the frog's skin.
    "The yangban bowed before the Star Prince, although that is not the custom between a man and his son-in-law. He begged forgiveness for his neglect, and he offered the frog-husband the seat of honor at the feast.
    "But the Star Prince only bade his bride make ready for their long journey, and a great cloud from Heaven snatched them up to the sky. That night the wise men who study the heavens found two new stars shining brightly just overhead. What else could they be but the fair Yun Ok and her frog, the son of the Star King?
    "The fortune brought to Lah by the frog lasted throughout his whole life. His riches grew ever greater and greater, and he wore the jade button in his official hat. Through all the twelve months it was New Year in his courts."

THE
GREAT
FIFTEENTH
DAY

    I   WASHED my face nine times, Yong Tu, and I cleaned my teeth with salt nine times, too," Ok Cha said to her brother on the morning of the Fifteenth Day of the First Month.
    "I combed my hair nine times, and I shall eat nine kinds of nuts today," the Korean boy replied.
    It was the Great Fifteenth Day, the day which ended the New Year holiday season, and it was the last chance to make sure of the New Year good luck. Each child raced with the others to see how many "lucky nines" he could collect during the day.
    The women also believed the number nine would bring them good luck. They gladly prepared the nine meals for the family; they swept the floors nine times; and nine times they stuffed fuel into the stove. The Master of the House himself bowed nine times before the tablets in the Ancestors' House.
    This dignified father of Ok Cha and Yong Tu was careful to omit none of the usual doings of this day. Under his watchful eyes his younger brothers and the boys made the three straw figures which should represent each of the three men of the household. To hide amid the straw, he gave them pieces of cash, Korean copper coins with big holes cut in their centers. He decided which old coats should be put upon the straw manikins. Together, all the men and boys of the household went to the gate to see the straw men tossed out into the street.
    "You should have seen the street boys fall on our straw men, Halmoni," Yong Tu reported to his grandmother. "They pulled off the old garments, and they tore at the straw to get the cash out."
    "That is well, my grandson." The old woman nodded her head in great satisfaction. "The more they kick the straw figures, the luckier our men will be. The bad spirits will be well fooled. They will think those are truly your father and uncles. The good spirits will read the paper prayers you tucked inside them. They will then help keep away ill luck from our house."
    Yong Tu himself wrote the prayers on the strips of paper hidden inside the straw figures. With careful brush strokes he had written this sentence on each, "For the coming twelve months, from sickness and bad luck protect me." The boy had kept watch through the bamboo gate until he could be sure that the straw figures were well kicked apart.
    "All the bad luck of the past year has gone with those straw men," the Korean grandmother told the children. "Your fathers can now make a fresh start. They have cast out their old, unlucky selves. Today they are new men, beginning a new year."
    Sometimes Ok Cha and Yong Tu thought the Great Fifteenth Day was even better than the New Year itself. This two-weeks New Year holiday, with its visitors and its gifts, its delicious food