Let me introduce a Korean legend.

I like vampire stories very much. The love for this started from a TV show called “Buffy the vampire slayer”. From that time, I have enjoyed many vampire related TV shows from ’Angel’, ‘Moonlight’, ‘Blood ties’, and ‘True blood’ to now ‘The vampire diaries’. You will be surprised when you realize how similar story plots vampire stories in western cultures and Kumiho(nine tailed fox) stories in Korea. Just taste a korean legend a little bit!

The kumiho (literally “nine tailed fox“) is a creature that appears in the oral tales and legends of Korea. According to those tales, a fox that lives a thousand years turns into a kumiho. It can freely transform, among other things, into a beautiful girl often set out to seduce men. As the mythology of the Kumiho evolved it was later believed that a Kumiho had to consume human hearts in order to survive. In later literatures they are often depicted as flesh-hungry half-fox, half-human things that wandered the cemeteries at night, digging human hearts out from graves. Another version was that the Kumiho must eat human livers. This was because the liver contained the energy of a human, meaning that it processes the food and gives energy, thus making it the container of the working force/life of a human.

Do you like vampire stories? It is a little bit similar. There are good vampires and bad vampires. So are Kumihos. Among Kumihos, there tends to a good kumiho girl who rejects to eat human livers and survives killing hens or cows. In this legend, she encounters a good man who is in danger by other Kumihos and saves him. He saw her and she made him swear not to tell anyone what he saw that night for 1000 days. There is a secret here. To become a human, Kumiho needs 1000 days and during that time and nobody should see her real shape. He swore and went back home.  Later, she realizes that she loves him and transforms and gets married to him. Of course he has no idea about her real identity. They lived very happily for a while. In some legends, they even have babies.

Anyway, strange things happen in their village. Many hens and cows are killed. One night, when the husband woke up and found out that his wife was missing. He has suspicion and decides to follow her. The next night( usually on the 999th day), he saw her eating hens and was shocked. He realized her real identity, but he could not kill her because he loved her very much. In another version, on the 999^th night, husband tells the story of the night to his wife (Kumiho). The sad thing is that she cannot be a human forever and go back to the woods again with a lot of pain and grief. The man regrets what he has done, but too late. The legend is about sad hopeless love between human and Kumiho. It gives us a lesson about the imprudent human nature and disbelief. Very Sad! If you enjoy this story, try this korean TV show!http://www.mysoju.com/nine-tailed-fox/