Free Tales of a Korean Grandmother by Frances Carpenter Page A

and its firecrackers to drive off the spirits, were filled with pleasures. The seesaw was in constant motion. The girls, standing upright upon it, were tossed higher and higher into the air. Even Mai Hee, or Plum Child, Halmoni's oldest granddaughter, enjoyed this sport.
    No Korean girl of those times would have wished to seesaw sitting down. That was not the custom. Also, it would not have been nearly so breath-taking as to be bounced high in the air, and then to come down neatly again on one's two feet. For making safe landings, little girls like Ok Cha clung to a balance rope hung from over their heads.
    "My father used to say," Halmoni explained, "the reason seesaws were invented was because girls grew tired of being shut up inside the Inner Court. When they bounced high into the air, they could look out over the walls into the street beyond."
    On this Great Fifteenth Day the sky above the Kim courts was dotted with kites. Those that were lowest showed their red, green, and purple colorings. Those higher up were like a flock of dark birds, flying across the blue sky.
    Yong Tu and his cousins had finished the kites they were making for the contest to be held on this day. With strong silken thread they had carefully tied two splints of bamboo across each other to form a giant letter A'. They had run other silk threads from end to end on these rods, to form the outside frame of the kite. Then they had covered the frame well with fine Korean paper, made from the bark of the mulberry tree. They took care to leave the center crossing uncovered, cutting out a small disc of the paper, so that the silken kite string could be tied to the bamboo splints. The reels for the kite strings were as carefully made as were the kites themselves.
    Halmoni had provided bits of old pottery which the boys pounded into tiny sharp bits for coating their kite strings. Running the strings first through sticky glue, then through the powdered pottery, they gave them a good cutting edge. For in kite fighting it was the string that could cut in two any other string crossing it, which won the day. Yong Tu was proud because he managed to keep his kite longest up in the air. Of all the kitefliers of his age, he thus became the champion.
    "The very first of such 'flying ones' was made hundreds and hundreds of years ago," Halmoni said to Ok Cha and the other girls, as they stood in the Inner Court and watched Yong Tu's kite make its triumphant flight from the street beyond the bamboo gate. "It was during one of the many times when the 'dwarf men of Japan' came here to try to conquer our country. The battles were not going well for the soldiers of our Little Kingdom. One night a star shot across the sky like an arrow, over their heads. An arrow star, as everyone knows, is a sign of bad luck. All were discouraged. They were sure they would lose in the next day's fighting. The general it was who thought of a way to lift up their spirits. He made a large kite, and he tied a small lantern fast to its frame. Then he sent it flying high in the sky.

    The seesaw was in constant motion during the New Year holidays. The girls standing upright upon it were tossed higher and higher into the air.

    "When the soldiers saw the lantern's light, they shouted, 'Here's a good sign! A new star hangs in the sky. A sure omen of victory!' And the next day they fought with renewed courage and might, and the enemy was driven away."
    Halmoni liked to explain about the different doings of the Great Fifteenth Day to the children.
    "Tonight, out on the hills, the farmers will gather to watch the full moon rise, my blessed ones. By its color on this night they will know whether their crops will be good in the coming season. If the moon is too pale, that means there will be too much rain. If it is too red, there will not be nearly enough, and the rice plants will dry up. But if it is a rich yellow, the color of a golden chrysanthemum, there will be just enough rain and more than enough