“Please, your worship, it is this that has turned us all into devils of jealousy. What is it?”
Then this gentleman from the capital, who was every day accustomed to the comforts and conveniences of the great city and the splendor of the palace, explained what a mirror was. He gave them all a mild scolding for their folly and dismissed them, telling them that whenever he or she felt angry, or jealous, to go out and pull the tops off five turnips; or, to drink slowly a cup of rice water before speaking an angry word.
Thereupon, the miller’s wife fell on her face and begged pardon of her husband. Then, all the family, young and old, while walking home, laughed heartily at their mistakes.
When a Korean begins to laugh, it is sometimes hard for him to stop; but after half an hour, all was quiet again. After that, nearly every one who could afford it bought a mirror. All the girls in the village, sooner or later, possessed one.
They used to look into its face so often to see their own, that the oiled-paper carpet fronting the mirror was, in many houses, soon worn out.
In Seoul, the mirror-makers wondered what had happened in Cucumberville, the village, so long famous only for its cucumbers, but they slapped their thighs for joy and grew rich. [[130]]
OLD TIMBER TOP
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.