There was formerly a soldier, Yee Man-ji of Yong-nam, a strong
and muscular fellow, and brave as a lion. He had green eyes and a
terrible countenance. Frequently he said, "Fear! What is fear?" On a
certain day when he was in his house a sudden storm of rain came on,
when there were flashes of lightning and heavy claps of thunder. At
one of them a great ball of fire came tumbling into his home and went
rolling over the verandah, through the rooms, into the kitchen and
out into the yard, and again into the servants' quarters. Several
times it went and came bouncing about. Its blazing light and the
accompanying noise made it a thing of terror.
Yee sat in the outer verandah, wholly undisturbed. He thought
to himself, "I have done no wrong, therefore why need I fear the
lightning?" A moment later a flash struck the large elm tree in front
of the house and smashed it to pieces. The rain then ceased and the
thunder likewise.
Yee turned to see how it fared with his family, and found them all
fallen senseless. With the greatest of difficulty he had them restored
to life. During that year they all fell ill and died, and Yee came
to Seoul and became a Captain of the Right Guard. Shortly after he
went to North Ham-kyong Province. There he took a second wife and
settled down. All his predecessors had died of goblin influences,
and the fact that calamity had overtaken them while in the official
quarters had caused them to use one of the village houses instead.
Yee, however, determined to live down all fear and go back to the
old quarters, which he extensively repaired.
One night his wife was in the inner room while he was alone in the
public office with a light burning before him. In the second watch or
thereabout, a strange-looking object came out of the inner quarters. It
looked like the stump of a tree wrapped in black sackcloth. There
was no outline or definite shape to it, and it came jumping along and
sat itself immediately before Yee Man-ji. Also two other objects came
following in its wake, shaped just like the first one. The three then
sat in a row before Yee, coming little by little closer and closer to
him. Yee moved away till he had backed up against the wall and could
go no farther. Then he said, "Who are you, anyhow; what kind of devil,
pray, that you dare to push towards me so in my office? If you have
any complaint or matter to set right, say so, and I'll see to it."