A tiger tale on the road to Wonsan

By Robert Neff

The fury of Korean tigers in the early 1900s Robert Neff Collection

By Robert Neff

• Published Sep 18, 2022 3:50 PM KST
• Updated Sep 19, 2022 3:22 PM KST

In the past, tigers reigned in Korea ― perhaps the only exception being Jeju Island (legends claim Jeju was spared from tiger infestation due to the island having only 99 peaks) ― and could be found in even the most unexpected places, including the bedroom.

In 1895, Yi Ik-seup published a “true story” about a tiger in The Korea Repository as a “warning to foreigners with their inordinate love for striped tiger skins, and to foreign ladies who dare to sleep all unconscious of the awful possibilities spread out as mats on the floor of their bedroom.”

According to Yi, there once was a magistrate from Seoul who was appointed to a new post in the northeastern part of the Korean Peninsula ― presumably Wonsan ― and needed to travel from the comfort of the capital to his new post overland. This was not an easy matter and would require at least a week or so of travel.

As was the general practice, the magistrate and his party stayed at inns (much to the innkeepers' displeasure as these magistrates had a reputation of not paying) or at government offices. However, one night, they were delayed and were forced to seek shelter for the night in a small dismal straw hut near the road.

As evening was approaching rapidly, the new magistrate quickly went into the building while his servants took care of the myriad of tasks that needed to be done before they could sleep that night in relative comfort. The magistrate was somewhat surprised to find there was no one in the house and so he made himself comfortable in the first room he encountered. As he sat down, something caught his attention.

“At one corner was a niche in the wall, where he saw a tiger skin folded up, and layed away. Without calling any of his servants he unrolled it; and found it to have been a huge Chik Pum, or striped tiger. As such skins are rare, and highly prized, and as it would have been undignified for one possessing the rank of a country official to inquire into the ownership of so small an article, he quietly rolled up the skin and packed it away in one of his pony bundles.”

As darkness began to fall, footsteps were heard outside and suddenly the door opened revealing a “maiden of surpassing beauty.” She was surprised to find the hut filled with people. She stared at the magistrate in a regal manner and demanded to know who he was and by what right he had entered her home. But, before the magistrate could answer, she sank to the floor and wept bitterly.

The magistrate quickly told her that he was on his way to his new post and “that the darkness and strange road [had] compelled him to take shelter” in her hut. He then asked the beautiful young woman why she wept so bitterly.

With tears streaming down her cheeks, she told the magistrate that she and her parents had lived here quite happily until her father, and then mother, were carried off and eaten by the tigers that haunted this area. Only she was left alive but it was only a matter of time before she would be carried off and eaten like her parents.

The magistrate ― perhaps swayed with the need to protect this damsel in distress but more likely, as Yi noted, by her beautiful appearance ― beseeched her to go with him to his new post. He told her that if she would marry him he would provide for her every need. She consented.

As time passed, she bore him two sons, bright little boys that were the apples of their father's eyes, and the magistrate was convinced that he was the luckiest man alive. But the happiness was apparently confined only to him ― his beautiful wife, “whom he loved dearly, had always a troubled look, [which] detracted from her beauty and told of some hidden grief that she had not shared with him.”

He reminded her of their wonderful sons, their beautiful house and their comfortable life, but nothing seemed to ease the darkness that clouded her heart. He then reminded her of the first night they met and, perhaps hoping to amuse her, confessed that he had taken the tiger skin that he had found hidden in the niche. She immediately brightened up and begged him to show it to her.

According to Yi:

“[The magistrate] had it brought and unrolled before her, the two boys wrapped in interest standing by. Suddenly she tossed the skin over her head and stood transformed into a huge striped tiger, who turned savagely upon the boys, tore them to pieces, and left the marks of their blood about the official room.”

The magistrate and his servants fled to the safety of an inner closet as the roaring beast that had once been his beautiful wife completed her destructive revenge. Once her fury was sated, she returned to rule her realm ― the mountains.

Like the old say goes, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” ― especially if that woman is a tiger who has been robbed of her pelt.

Robert Neff has authored and co-authored several books, including Letters from Joseon, Korea Through Western Eyes and Brief Encounters.