Folk Tales from Korea. By Zong In-Sob. (Routledge. 21s.) PROFESSOR
ZONG IN-SoB's admirable collec- tion of Korean folk-tales and fables transports us to a world of ceremonious and cultured behaviour whose elegant, but heavy, etiquette is mitigated and interrupted by several factors which we should, but do not, expect. The two chief factors are magic and the more amiable human impulses. The young man riding out, to sit for an important Civil Service examination, the already arrived Magistrate; or the still more important Minis- ter will, as likely as not, find official business seriously hindered by the ghosts of drowned maidens, blue or yellow dragons, magical tigers and so on ; the tigers—which abound a part not unlike that of the werewolf in Aryan tales. The way in which human feeling dodges strict tradition is charmingly exemplified in one of the non-magical tales, that of " The Young Widow." But the pleasure of reading such tales may, alas, be qualified for us by certain sad reflections. The armies now fighting in Korea must, from a Korean point of view, appear to resemble and indeed surpass the tigers and dragons which seem once to have been the principal hazards of Korean life. A. W.-B.
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