The secretary asked, “Where are you going, please?”
She replied, “We have a servant living at Yong-san, and they are having a witches’ prayer service there just now, so I am going to partake of the sacrifice.”
“But,” said the secretary, “we have sacrificial days, many of them, at our own home, those of the four seasons, also on the first and fifteenth of each month. Why do you go to a servant’s house and not to mine?”
The mother replied, “Your sacrifices are of no interest to me, I like the prayers of the witches. If there is no medium we spirits find no satisfaction. I am in a hurry,” said she, “and cannot wait longer,” so she spoke her farewell and was gone.
The secretary awoke with a start, but felt that he had actually seen what had come to pass.
He then called a servant and told him to go at once to So-and-So’s house in Yong-san, and tell a certain servant to come that night without fail. “Go quickly,” said the secretary, “so that you can be back before I enter the Palace.” Then he sat down to meditate over it.
In a little the servant had gone and come again. It was not yet broad daylight, and because it was cold the servant did not enter straight, but went first into the kitchen to warm his hands before the fire. There was a fellow-servant there who asked him, “Have you had something to drink?”
He replied, “They are having a big witch business on at Yong-san, and while the mutang (witch) was performing, she said that the spirit that possessed her was the mother of the master here. On my appearance she called out my name and said, ‘This is a servant from our house.’ Then she called me and gave me a big glass of spirit. She added further, ‘On my way here I met my son going into the Palace.’”
The secretary, overhearing this talk from the room where he was waiting, broke down and began to cry. He called in the servant and made fuller inquiry, and more than ever he felt assured that his mother’s spirit had really gone that morning to share in the koot (witches’ sacrificial ceremony). He then called the mutang, and in behalf of the spirit of his mother made her a great offering. Ever afterwards he sacrificed to her four times a year at each returning season.