The fairies in the Korean province of Kang Wen, which means River
Meadow, were having great fun, when one of their number told how they
played a trick on an ox-driver whom they called Old Timber Top. How he
got such a strange name this story will tell.
This driver was a rich and stingy fellow who had made a fortune in
lumber. He used to buy up all the trees he could. Then he would have
them cut down and sawed up into logs and boards. His men would haul
them away in their rough carts, drawn by stout bulls, to his lumber
yard. In winter time sleds were used, but whether it was the season of
snow and ice, or of tree blossoms and flowers, the animal used to draw
sleds or carts was always a bull.
For in Korea, horses or donkeys do not know how to pull anything. The
ponies and donkeys are too small. Not being used to the work, if
harnessed they would kick the wagon all to pieces.
They can carry loads on their backs, but the bulls can do this also, so
the creature with horns is considered to be the most valuable of beasts
of burden. Besides, he fills the purse and makes good dinners when his
owner is through with him.
You can see these patient carriers loaded with brushwood or sticks
piled so high they seem to be carrying small mountains of twigs, grass
and leaves for kindlings, or with heavy logs of wood for fuel. Yet when
the bull is very young, a mere baby, he has a happier time than a colt
or little donkey, for he lives in the house and is the children’s pet.
Old Timber Top sold his logs and boards at such high prices that the
poor suffered. This was because they were cold and could not afford to
pay so many strings of cash for fuel. The people used to say that the
old fellow would skin a mosquito for his hide and tallow. So sometimes
they gave him the nickname of Skin-flay.
Not many of the villagers were able to buy planks of wood thick and
heavy and strong enough to keep their pigs from the tigers, which came
down from the mountains and prowled about at night in the villages.
These long-haired and black-striped beasts got to be so fond of pork,
that even in the snow they would, without fearing the cold or the guns
of the hunters, claw up the tops of the pens and get down among the
squealing prey. They might get a baby pig at once or perhaps drag out
and carry off enough of a big pork to feed their cubs for a week. All
the stables and cow-houses had to be made very strong, for the tigers,
when they had gone a good while without food, seemed to be hungry
enough to eat a horse with all his harness on, and even a grown-up cow
or ox. Yet as a rule, no tiger cared to taste either beef or horse
meat, if he could get young pork or veal.
Old Timber Top was not satisfied to make money at his lumber yard only.
It is the custom in Korea to plant the most beautiful trees around
tombs or in the cemeteries. When this skin-flint heard of a family
which had become so poor that they must needs sell the splendid trees
which had been planted around their ancestors’ graves he sent his
agents to buy the timber. These fellows would load up a horse with long
ropes, of copper and iron cash, coins that had a square hole in the
middle and were strung together with twine made of twisted straw. It
was a heavy horse load to carry twenty dollars’ worth of coin. Arrived
on the spot, after beating the owner down to the lowest price possible,
Old Timber Top’s men would go out, chop down and saw up the grand
trees, leaving only the sawdust on the graves, while the people wept to
lose what they loved.
In this way the landscape was spoiled and this made many villagers very
angry at such a man, for the Koreans love natural scenery and almost
worship fine trees, which had made the country beautiful for centuries.
But what cared Old Timber Top, provided he could pile up his strings of
cash and jingle his silver?
In time, this hard old fellow could think of nothing else but how to
get richer out of the wants and sufferings of other people. The
wealthier he became, the more he wanted. Yet he did not get any
happier. Nobody loved him, while many hated him.
At last he thought he would make a trip to Seoul, the great capital
city, which every Korean hopes to see sometime. There he expected to
receive honor and appointment to rank and office. Timber Top had a
relative who was high in the king’s service, who, he thought, would
assist him; for all Koreans are kind and helpful to each other,
especially when they are related.
To be an officer Timber Top knew would permit him, even to wear a
gorgeously shining mandarin’s hat with wide flaps or wings on it and a
long white silk coat with a big square on the breast of velvet or
satin, embroidered with storks or dragons, clouds and waves. When he
went out on the streets he could strut about, as if he were the lord of
the universe; for he would then wear a hat so high and with such a
round wide brim, that he would not dare to go out during a high wind,
for fear of being blown away, like a ship in a tempest. In such a
costume he would be saluted by servants and the common people, who
would bow down before him, because they would think him a great man.
But how could he win such a position and gain the glory of it?
He was not a scholar, learned in books, or in law, or a doctor of
medicine. Not being a soldier, either, he knew nothing of war. He could
not ride on a monocycle, as a general did, drawn or pushed by four men
and dressed in a long red coat studded all over with shining metal with
a brass helmet on his head, on the top of which was a little dragon. He
feared, even if he were appointed, he might fall off the one-wheeled
vehicle and show what a fool he was.
Nevertheless this old fellow was so vain and full of conceit that he
followed what was once the common custom in Korea. He took his journey
to Seoul, leaving his family behind him to live on the cheapest kind of
kimchi, with turnips and millet.
Now the Koreans are all famous for giving welcome and showing
hospitality to their poor relations, and often they do this even to
tramps and lazy people. When a man becomes rich or holds a high office,
he usually has around him many hangers on. Some, we should even say,
were loafers.
So on arriving in Seoul, Old Timber Top took up his quarters in one
part of his relative’s big house. There he lived a long time and was
treated decently, for he always was saying soft things and making
flattering speeches to his host. In fact, he bowed down like a slave
when in presence of his august master. Yet, in truth, he was despised
even by the servants and work people.
In order not to wear his welcome entirely out he had to make from time
to time a handsome present to his patron. This steadily reduced both
his income and his fortune, and while these were shrinking his family
at home suffered, so that, by and by, he received notice by letter that
his business had dried up and soon no more money could be sent to him
in Seoul. While he lingered news from home grew worse and worse. His
wife was obliged to sell their house to pay debts. The next item was
that she and her daughter were living in a wretched shanty at the end
of the village and were no longer in society.
All this time those in Seoul who knew that the foolish fellow was as
ambitious as ever to wear the fine white clothes of a scholar, or the
gay colors of a soldier, declared that Old Timber Top had no brains.
They even jested about a pumpkin set on shoulders, or they laughed when
they declared that the wood, which he had sold so long, had gone to his
head. They debated in the wine shops whether, if his skull were opened,
pumpkin seeds or timber would be found inside of it.
So they, also, called him “Old Timber Top,” meaning that inside his
skull was a wooden head and no better than that of an idol carved out
of persimmon wood, such as were so plentiful in the Buddhist temples.
Others declared that he had a real head of bone and brains, but “he
carried it under his arm pits,” as the saying was.
When the fairies heard all this, they unanimously resolved to reform
the old fellow, even if they had to make an ox of him.
Timber Top, now poor and bankrupt, knew he must leave Seoul and go home
and work for a living. When he made his final call on his rich Seoul
relative and told him he must, to his great regret, take his leave and
go back to his native village, he was not well received. Being too poor
to buy a present to give to his host, on whose bounty he had lived so
long, he was answered coldly and told to go and do as he liked.
And this, after years of fawning and gift-making! Not a word of thanks
or appreciation! Poor Timber Top was down in the mouth and his heart
was cold in his bosom. He knocked on his head with his fists, to find
out whether, after all, it had really turned into timber.
On his way back, a big storm came on and when he came to a village inn,
cold, wet and hungry, he begged for shelter over night. The woman who
kept it was the wife of a butcher, who was then away from home. This
was an awful blow to Timber Top’s pride, for butchers were held to be
the lowest of people, and they were not even allowed to wear hats, like
the rest of the men in Korea.
The woman was kind to the traveler. She gave him a hot supper and let
him sleep in that room of the house which had the best stone floor,
under which the flues from the kitchen fire ran. So he warmed himself
and baked his clothes, which were sopping wet, until they were dry. He
was so tired that he kept on sleeping till very late next morning, and
nearly to the noon hour. He was altogether so comfortable that to him
it seemed as if he were a great man in the capital, thus to receive
such kind treatment.
Waking up from one of his naps, he heard what he thought was the big
butcher, who had come home, asking of his wife in a gruff tone of
voice, “Where is that ox? I must sell him this morning, for it is
market day,” he said.
In less than a minute more, the man and his wife entered the room with
four sticks which the fairies had put there, a halter, and a rope, made
of twisted rice straw, besides a thick iron ring, such as they put into
bulls’ noses, to make them obey their masters. Throwing down the iron
ring and rope on the floor, in a trice they had thrust the stick under
Old Timber Top’s back. In a moment more, he felt horns growing out of
his head, and his lips becoming thick as sausages. His mouth was as
wide as a saucer and had big teeth growing on the upper jaw. A tail
sprouted at his other end and the four sticks became four legs.
Before he could quite understand just what was going on, or what the
matter could be, Old Timber Top was standing on four legs and the
butcher was slipping the ring through his nose. Oh how it did hurt!
It was an awkward job to get the animal out of the room and through the
narrow door, and some of the paper on the walls and the furniture
suffered. But finally when out in the open air the bull, that was no
other than what had been the man Timber Top, went quietly along to the
market place. Any attempt to pull his head away, or to stop or run off,
or in any way to misbehave, hurt his nose so dreadfully, that he
quickly quit. The butcher needed to give only a slight jerk of the rope
when the bull changed his gait and was as quiet as a lamb, even though
as an animal he was big enough to gore the man and toss him on its
horns, or crush him by trampling on him with his hoofs, if once he got
angry.
One would have supposed that Timber Top would be a fighting bull, but
no! In the market place he stood patiently and quietly for hours,
hardly even stamping, when the flies began to bite.
“Oh that I had been as diligent and kept on at my honest occupation in
my native village, as that fly!” mused the bull, that still had a man’s
memory.
At last there came a man with money to buy. He was a drover, who
unloaded his pony and paid down many strings, or about twenty pounds,
of copper and iron cash. The owner put the halter in the buyer’s hand,
and the new master then led off Timber Top to be sold to a butcher who
lived up in his home town in the north. This fellow intended first to
fatten the animal and then turn him into steaks and stewing meat.
But on his way the new owner thought that, because he had made a good
bargain, he must stop at a wine shop and have a drink. So he tied
Timber Top’s nose with the rope to the low wall, which enclosed a
turnip field, and went inside the shop.
But while the drover’s wine went in his wits went out, and he fell
asleep and stayed in the shop a long time. In fact, it was as the old
song said:
“First the man takes a dram,
Then the dram takes another dram;
Then the dram takes the man.”
Meanwhile Timber Top looked over the low wall, and, yielding to
temptation, pulled up with his teeth some of the plants by the roots,
first chewing the green leaves and then grinding the turnips and
swallowing them.
Presto! The horns drew in and shrivelled up. The ring dropped out of
his nose and fell with a crash on the stones of the village path. His
two forelegs turned into arms, the hair and hoofs became human legs and
Old Timber Top was a man, and himself once again. To make sure of it he
felt himself all over; pulled his own nose, felt around his back to see
if he had a tail, and rubbed his head for horns. None there! He looked
down and found he had only two legs. Then he swung his arms with
delight, at being once more a man.
“Well named, Turn-up thou,” he mused, “thou green plant with a
mustard-like taste. Thou hast turned me inside out. Or, have the
fairies been busy?”
He had hardly got these ideas through his half wooden head, that he was
on two legs and a man once more and could think like one, than he
started on the road home. Just then the drover rushed out of the wine
shop and accosted him, saying:
“Have you seen a stray bull anywhere near this place?”
Of course Timber Top using fine language, like a yang ban, said there
was no bull in the neighborhood that he could see or knew of, and he
had heard none bellowing. Then he gave the drover a look of contempt
for being so stupid, and for asking of him, a gentleman, so foolish a
question.
Yet after he was out of sight of the drover he slapped his thighs, as
Koreans do when they are amused at their own smartness, and went on
joyfully. He kept on repeating to himself, “sticks and turnips, turnips
and sticks.”
Then a big idea struck him, as if it were a tap on a wooden drum, such
as one sees in Buddhist temples. It hit his brain so hard and so
swelled his head, that his big Korean hat nearly toppled off.
Immediately he put this idea into action.
He returned hastily to the inn and into the room in which he had been
turned into a bull and stole the butcher’s four fairy sticks, which
stood in a corner, then he hied at once over the roads towards the
capital.
Reaching Seoul, he went to the house of his rich relative, where he had
waited ten years for the fortune and the favor which did not come.
Going into his host’s bedroom, he tapped the high lord of the house
with the fairy sticks, not hard, but only lightly.
Forthwith the man’s head became horns at the top, with muzzle of thick
lips in front. His hands turned into front hoofs and his legs into the
hind quarters of a bull. Yet he was not entirely an ox, but only half
animal and half man.
Old Timber Top stopped tapping and then went away, to await events,
leaving the creature half man and half ox. He knew that soon he would
be called in.
When the family of wife, many sons, several daughters, servants,
retainers, hangers-on, and what not, saw their master half man and half
ox, with horns and hoofs, they were distracted. Each one had his own
notion of how to get him back into human form and like his former self.
Each one ran all over town and into the adjoining villages to get and
call in the mudangs.
These mudangs were the people, mostly women, whose business it was to
drive out the imps and bad fairies, such as had, in this case, done the
mischief. The kitchen maids stoutly declared that Tokgabi had wrought
the change upon their master. They felt quite sure of it; but the men
thought that the gods of the mountains were punishing him for his sins.
On the other hand, the mudang woman said she would find out and get him
back into his human skin, if they paid her enough money.
With drums and dancing and songs, screams, yells, and every sort of
noise, the mudangs kept up such a terrible racket that it almost
deafened the family. There were several of them called in, and they
knew that they would all be well paid.
Meanwhile the doctors also kept on with their awful medicines, besides
rubbing, pounding, blowing, and sticking needles into the bull and
burning moxa, or little balls of cottony mugwort, on its hide.
Yet not a hoof or horn, not even a hair changed.
The mudangs declared that the imps had got inside the man and they must
get them out. One fellow carried a big bottle to trap the imps and cork
them in. Another insisted that they would have to use scissors and snip
the skin in about a hundred places, thus making small holes to let the
evil creatures out. Then they must bottle them up, lest they should get
out and overrun the house and infest the whole town.
There seemed not so many chances of getting well as “one hair among
nine oxen”; but the wife pleaded that they would put off using the
scissors until all other means had failed. She did not want to see her
dear husband’s skin made into a colander, or sieve, if it could be
helped.
At this point, when the din and the despair were worst and had come to
a climax, Old Timber Top appeared. As some of the family had collapsed
and lay helpless on the floor, and as all were too tired to ask
questions, they at once made way for him. After looking at the patient
with a face as wise as an owl’s, Old Timber Top solemnly announced that
only one thing could save him and that was a rare and wonderful drug,
of which only he knew the secret, but which he could speedily procure.
Of course the wife, sons and daughters instantly promised to give up
their all, to see their husband and father himself again.
So while Timber Top went out to get the famous medicine, they all fell
asleep, tired out, while the ox-man lay over on his side resting his
horns and hoofs on the floor bed; for in Korea they do not have
bedsteads, that is, beds raised up from the floor.
As for Old Timber Top, when once out on the street, he immediately
began saying to himself, over and over again, “Turnips and sticks,
sticks and turnips.”
Going to a vegetable shop, he bought a fine large turnip, or
turnip-radish, of the kind that grows in Korea, silvery white and about
four feet long. He first peeled, then sliced, and finally pounded it
into a sauce very fine. Then entering the house in triumph, he woke up
the doctors, kicked the servants awake, and announced that the potent
drug would soon restore their master. He solemnly bade them all watch
and see him do it.
Pulling and hauling all together, five or six fellows were able to get
the man-bull on his two hoofs and two feet and then Timber Top put a
spoonful of the sauce on the big tongue.
At once a most marvellous change took place!
The horns shortened until they disappeared, the lips thinned, the mouth
became smaller. Hoofs, hair, and hide departed into empty air. In the
wagging of a dog’s tail, the mighty man of the house had become himself
again.
All the doctors, jugglers, and mudangs packed up their imp-bottles and
medicines, and with their drums, flutes, bags, boxes and wares slunk
away, while the family loaded Old Timber Top with grateful thanks and
compliments.
As for the master, he declared Timber Top the greatest physician the
world ever knew. He invited him to make the house his permanent home
and showered upon him many gifts, with plenty to eat, and white clothes
starched as white as snow. The hats with which he presented Timber Top
were so big around and had a brim so wide, that he used them when
covered with oiled paper covers as umbrellas in rainy weather, but he
never went out doors when the wind was blowing, for fear he would be
whirled down the street. Besides this, he feared there was still much
wood in his head, which might turn into a top and spin round, if he
were not careful.
Old Timber Top set up a medicine office, practiced among the nobility
and became physician to the king. When he visited the palace, he used a
red visiting card, a foot long. He had a plastron, or square of velvet
embroidery on his breast. He wore a string of amber beads as big as
walnuts over his ears. He soon became fat with a double chin and plump
fingers, showing that he reeked with prosperity. He lived to a good old
age, his family were made comfortable, his sons and daughters married
well, and he had seventeen grandchildren before he died.
Yet all the time, the fairies claimed that they did it all. They made
the sticks work one way, and the turnips another, and they still play
their tricks on the Koreans, especially those with more or less wood in
their heads.