Everywhere on earth the fairy world of each country is older and
perhaps more enduring than the one we see and feel and tread upon. So I
tell in this book the folk lore of the Korean people, and of the
behavior of the particular kind of fairies that inhabit the Land of
Morning Splendor. Yet, if I live long enough, I shall write the
wonderful history of the Korean nation and civilization, which once so
enriched Asia, and made possible the modern Japan such as we know
today, of which fact the literature and art of both countries bear
ample witness.