Samguk Yusa: Legends and History of the Three Kingdoms of Ancient Korea

by Ilyon

A fascinating work, dating from the late 1200s. This book (Yusa), is not just a story but a collection of histories, anecdotes and memorabilia, covering the origins of Korea's three monarchies--Silla, Paekche and Koguryo, offering an account of the latter nation that differs quite a bit from what you'll read in Chinese history books. Translated by Professor Ha Tae-Hung of Yonsei University, with special help from Grafton Mintz.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Asia, Folklore, Classics, Mythology, World History

374 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1280

Reviews

[Shelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fascinating book.
I do not have a broad understanding of Korean history, so the barrage of names was overwhelming at times, but how amazing that such a document exists! A book from the 1200s preserving much earlier stories! What a chance to look into a past view of politics between the Kingdoms and their neighbors! It was even interesting to see overlaps - Korean stories that also appear in Persian tales, or broader trends-of-the-era, ways of thinking that are foreign to our era but common to theirs in Korea and Europe.

[Isaac Muscanto · Rating 3 out of 5]

This interseting tome is a compilation of Korean folk tales during the three kingdoms period. Not gonna lie, I had a hard time reading this book because a lot of it is fantastized depictions of events in early Korean history, and as such, a lot of it feels like a series of events without context or drama i.e. "such and such king goes to such such battle, prays to so and so, and this happens", lather, rinse, and repeat. A few stories will occasionally stick out, like an interesting story about an old man who tries to trick his way into the nobility with a harebrained scheme using a small fire in a mountainside (hard to explain without telling the story). But a lot of the stories, for someone with no solid grounding in Korean medieval history, are hard to follow or enjoy. Was a little worthwhile for though, just for the interesting perspective, since there aren't many English language translations of Korean stories during this time period.

[Andre · Rating 2 out of 5]

For a book with the title "Legends & Wonder Stories", there were surprisingly few in here. The list of contents was quite long even though the book only has 138 stories. And was the history lesson at the beginning from the editor really necessary?

Most of what you find in here was more like a list of heirs to the throne and political decisions, and even if I like history, that's not why I came here for. That the mythical founder of the Joseon kingdom named Dangu Wanggeom descended from a bear turned human and a god was the first time that a miracle really happened in this book. And after that it had taken quite a while. And that was just little things here and there, like people hatching from eggs, coming from heaven with dragons or a boy who looks like a golden frog. Until then it was all about geography and battles, like a bunch of notes.
And even though there was a boy from an egg (twice) and a girl from the rib of a female dragon (in another version she was found in the body of the dragon), most of it was just a list of nations and genealogies, even if the one boy was carried on the sea by a red dragon.
Apart from such details, the first really interesting thing was the statement that someone would rather be a dog or pig in Gyerim than a noble in Japan. That sounded like some antipathy towards Japan, and considering how old these stories are, I wonder how long ago this antipathy was. It is even later said that they are referred to as "wai", meaning dwarfs.

With all those stories about kings, I was certain from the beginning that I would not remember them. They were too boring to arouse my interest. There where Kim Je-Sung's wife and the king become guardian spirits and the king debates with his general, the speaking rat and pigs or those with the 45 cm penis on a king and his 2.4 meter tall wife, the only ones that I remember.

Briefly there was a story where there was practically a lexicon of omens: a red horse that runs 6 times around the monastery, many foxes in the palace and a white one jumps on the table, a 30 foot long fish whose flesh kills everyone , wailing oaks, ghosts and goblins scream, spring water turns blood-red, 10,000 frogs croak in the trees, all dogs in the city form packs and run away, a ghost and a turtle that has a prophecy on its armor.

But that was short and the first quarter of the book was pretty disappointing for me. Luckily there were elements like King Munmu who became a dragon and king of all sea dragons after his death, a flute can bring luck and the jade belt where every ornament is a dragon that comes out when it comes into contact with water. And the beauty Lady Suro was apparently constantly kidnapped by dragons and gods. Like a mixture of Princess Peach and Zelda.

The story about King Hyegong would make a story about trans or at least female men in the ancient Kingdom of Silla. Maybe even for a fantasy film since the gods told his father that they would bless him with a daughter and if he wanted a son the kingdom would suffer (there was a rebellion). However, another story said that Hyegong had abandoned his feminine behavior. It was somewhat contradicting what happened to him.

Of course, the story of the king with the donkey ears is also here. And also the story of where sea dragons are enchanted by someone is here. But in this one, the fox has the shape of a monk (not an old woman) and kills the dragons to eat their livers.
Dragons were slowly becoming more common, not only when the Chinese General Su Ting-Fang caught one with his horse as bait but also King Mu as the son of a dragon (later it was said that this was only a legend), but also several dragons that did not just listen to the sounds of Buddhist monasteries but also spread Buddhism or ask for it. And China appears here quite often.
Even the evil dragons (such as the poisonous dragon on the border with Korea and the 5 giantesses in the shape of dragons that cause drought, misfortune and storms, or the shape-changing dragon of evil that was defeated by Hyetong) are somehow connected to Buddhism as they either conquered or converted. But not all of them, so there is nothing like that with another poisonous and shape-changing dragon, who swears to be reborn as an evil devil dragon to take revenge on the king.

There were always stories about Buddhism and they were really boring. Even India has been mentioned several times and that some Korean ruler is the rebirth of an Indian ruler. That made me wonder and I wondered how much contact there was between India and Korea at the time. And supposedly some Koreans are descended from an Indian princess, but here her name is given as Heo Hwang-Ok and that doesn't sound particularly Indian.

And in addition to the constant Buddhist stories, there were also anecdotes and biographies of famous monks and I didn't care. I had seriously considered giving up when I was about 2/3 of the book but I had persevered.
Admittedly, that was only because a dragon appeared again shortly afterwards. This time it was the son of the Dragon King of the Western Sea and he had settled in a pond near the monastery (which also had slaves) and helped to spread Buddhism in Korea. And apparently could be hidden under a bed.
Here I really wondered why dragons are so strongly associated with Buddhism. Because I don't know anything from China, Japan, Taiwan or Vietnam, so why is it like this in Korea?
And Buddhimus is not only brought here to humans but also to fish and turtles.

Sure, it all sounds like there are miracles after miracles in this book but that is deceptive, most of them are really just historical notes and nothing more. At a little over 3/4 of the book it came to the Book of Miracles and there was a nice little exorcism immediately. And a question: what is a beopcheok? I couldn't find anything and the book doesn't explain it.
But no matter what, the next story had my full attention and with a title like "Hyetong defeats the dragon of evil" how could it not? But I had asked myself whether Hyetong ended up chasing the dragon away or converting to Buddhism. There is such a song at the end which confused me a little. And immediately afterwards there was another story where a sea dragon helped Buddhism.
There were a few more stories but unfortunately also a lot about the construction of Buddhist monuments by monks and I simply wasn't interested. I just had too much of that. The only one of these monk stories that I could somehow remember was where the dead man was only sent back after 10 days and was already in the grave.
Here was a story about a tigress in the form of a young woman and her tiger brothers that is quite ambivalent about tigers. Not to forget that this was the first time that I saw a story from East Asia where mandarin ducks were shown as a symbol of fidelity. And this story sounds very much like that of the heavenly maidens and swan maidens, only here it is a tigress and she walks away by putting her tiger skin back on. Which was also the first time that I saw animal transformation by putting on a hide in an East Asian story.

The story about the couple who want to kill their baby so that he does not eat the food of the grandmother was very strange. Sure, the son is saved by a miracle, but was it really about parenthood? Because the infant took the food his grandmother gave him during a famine, so shouldn't the couple have respected the grandmother's wish?

And then suddenly I was done, just like that. I didn't read the epilogue anymore, that sounded too scientific to me and I didn't understand anything anymore.

As you can see for sure, this last part is the highlight of the book for me and if it were only that I might give it full marks but unfortunately the previous chapters pulled it down too much.

[Станислав · Rating 3 out of 5]

Конечно начать надо было с "Самгук саги", которые я читал в небольшой части. Но что же - я многое делаю наоборот. Историк-конфуцианец для которого история это государство и смена его глав. И историк-буддист, который не так строг в этом отношении. Собственно историческая часть повествования очень путанная, фрагментарная, но содержит интересные сведения, видимо уникальны. Более живы и интересны тома 3-5, где как раз разные истории, часто без исторического контекста, имеющее отношения к буддизму в Корее (почти все случаи из VII-VIII века). Судя по комментариям и скобкам язык часто очень сбивчив, даже для лапидарной древне-китайской манеры. В общем, поскольку историю стран конфуцианской культуры мы знаем в основном по произведениям придворных историков, воспитанных на китайской классике и презиравших "пустые россказни о чудесном и удивительном", эта книга даёт новую перспективу истории Кореи. Но только тому, кто уже хорошо знает историю Кореи.

[s.l.j.]

yooo this was translated by a professor from my university here :00

[Daniel Teo · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Samguk Yusa is written in the 13th century and is a collection of various Korean legends, myths and folktales. While the title may indicate otherwise, this collection does not limit itself to the Three Kingdoms period.

What makes this book so interesting is that it tells the stories as they were, without much editing, but with lots of useful annotations by the translators. As such, you really get a good sense of how people think or act during that period, which also helps to better understand modern Korean culture today.

I thought that Samguk Yusa is one of the few historical Korean works existing today, especially which are translated into a foreign language, which makes it mandatory reading for anyone interested in Korean history and culture.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first two chapters (or books according to the way the Samguk Yusa names them) were better than the last three chapters because they had somewhat more factual events in them. The last three chapters delved more into legend and folklore, although if one reads the Ha Tae Hung and Grafton K. Mintz translation, like I did, they will be able to still get some historical information from them. I found these last three chapters to be a real drag to read and hence my low rating for the book. Some of the stories were entertaining. Unfortunately, not much has been written about this time period in Korean history and therefore this and the Samguk Sagi are a couple of the few sources one can go to, for research during this elusive period of Korean history.

[Megan Trout · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a good book to get a basic history about the Three Kingdom's Period of the Korean peninsula. It is not for the faint of heart in reading, this is a thick book with older language in it. But if you are like me and love history and myths and reading them in the closest to original form, this is a great book.

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an anthology of ancient Korean Mythology. Super cool and interesting. I found it a big help when I first moved to Korea to immerse myself in as much culture as I could get my hands on in an attempt to understand a bit better. This was an entertaining way to do it.

[Wogie · Rating 5 out of 5]

After 3 months of slow-reading, this book has it's historical content mixed with folktales. Full of knowledge about the Korean Three Kingdoms, History of Buddhism in Korea and folk history based on Silla subjects.