page_title: Korean creation narratives
section_title: Common elements in the northern narratives
hierarchical_section_title: Korean creation narratives / Northern narratives / Common elements in the northern narratives
caption_attribution_description: 한국어: 민화-장생화락도 English: The picture titled "Jangsaeng.hwarakdo" is painted in a way of Minhwa, Korean folk painting.
context_page_description: Korean creation narratives are Korean shamanic narratives which recount the mythological beginnings of the universe. They are grouped into two categories: the eight narratives of mainland Korea, which were transcribed by scholars between the 1920s and 1980s, and the Cheonji-wang bon-puri narrative of southern Jeju Island, which exists in multiple versions and continues to be sung in its ritual context today. The mainland narratives themselves are subdivided into four northern and three eastern varieties, along with one from west-central Korea.
  Many elements are shared by most Korean creation narratives. In one such episode, two gods grow flowers in a contest to decide who will rule the human world. The deserving benevolent god grows the blossom, but the other god steals it while the good god sleeps. The undeserving cheater thereby becomes the ruler of humanity and spreads evil into the world. In another pan-Korean episode, there are originally two suns and two moons, making the world unbearably hot during the day and intolerably cold at night, until a deity destroys one of each.
context_section_description: The four northern narratives share a number of commonalities not found elsewhere in Korea. Only the Seng-gut and im's Changse-ga, both northern narratives, explain the precise means by which humanity was created. The contest between Mireuk and Seokga, which occurs after the creation of humanity, is preceded by two other contests of supernatural talent in all northern narratives but the Sam Taeja-puri. In all four narratives, Seokga (except in Kim's Changse-ga, where Mireuk plays this role) then embarks on a quest for either the missing sun and moon or the source of fire and water, which always involves the god thrashing a smaller being. In both the Seng-gut and Kim's Changse-ga, one of Seokga's first acts after the usurpation is to hunt, kill, and eat a deer. In both narratives, two of Seokga's followers refuse to eat the meat, calling it a desecration. These two men die and are transfigured into natural objects.
  Korean creation narratives agree that humans preceded the flower contest, but most only copy the vague statements of Chinese philosophers that humans are one of the operating forces of the universe. The only exceptions are the northern Seng-gut, where humans are created from earth, and Kim's Changse-ga, where Mireuk grows insects into humans.
  Mireuk held a silver platter in one hand and a gold platter in the other, and prayed towards heaven. Insects fell from heaven: five on the golden platter, five on the silver platter. He brought up those insects; the golden ones became men, the silver ones became women. The silver and golden insects that had matured were arranged into husbands and wives, and the people of the world were born.
  There is scholarly consensus that the Seng-gut's creation from earth is a foreign element, with similar Chinese or Mongol myths a likely source, while the Changse-ga creation represents an indigenous Korean belief.
  While sharing the motif of three contests between Mireuk and Seokga, the two Changse-ga narratives and the Seng-gut do not agree on the first two contests. In Kim's Changse-ga, the first contest is to lower a bottle from a rope into the eastern seas. Mireuk uses a golden bottle and a golden rope, while Seokga uses a silver bottle and a silver rope. Seokga's rope breaks in the middle of the sea. He refuses to accept his defeat and proposes a new contest: to freeze the Sŏngch'ŏn River in midsummer. Mireuk invokes the winter solstice, while Seokga invokes the beginning of spring. The former is victorious. The latter again rejects the result, and the flower contest begins.
  In Jeon's Changse-ga, the first contest is to shatter a bottle of liquor in midair and have the liquid continue to float in the air while the shards of the bottle fall to the earth. Mireuk succeeds, but Seokga's liquor spills to the earth as he breaks the bottle. But Seokga uses this defeat to justify his claim to the world, for his bottle has already given rise to the freshwater of the earth.
  The bottle was hit and shattered and fell to the ground, and the liquor too fell... Mireuk said, "Look at that! It is far from being your age."
  Seoga Yeol Sejon [Seokga] said, "[Rather,] it is becoming my age."
  "How is it that it is becoming your age?"
  "When it becomes my age, water will form first out of the Five Phases of Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth. The liquor has spilled to the earth, and the waters of the ditches and wells and the waters of the springs and the rivers have all formed from it."
  The precise details of the second challenge are difficult to understand, but involves stacking rice stalks using a chicken's egg. As in the liquor contest, Mireuk succeeds and Seokga fails, but Seokga justifies his defeat by claiming that it is becoming his age because humanity will stack grain the way he has. The flower contest then ensues.
  The Seng-gut is narrated from a perspective favorable towards Seokga. Its two contests are games of "immortal go" and "immortal janggi," and using a rock to moor a boat whose rigging is of sand. Seokga is victorious in both contests because he is cunning where Mireuk is foolish, but 
caption: Deer, Korean folk painting
exif: {"Image Tag 0x000B": "ACD Systems Digital Imaging"}