A Kingdom Sent from Heaven
Wind, campfire and river sounds change with every scene, and the music follows the story.
In the Bronze Age, as grain piled up in the villages, there came to be those who had and those who had not. The chieftain, holding a bronze dagger and mirror, claimed to be a descendant of Heaven, and hundreds of people strained on ropes to raise a dolmen for him. On the night the dolmen was raised, the old priest began to tell the children the story of the son of the King of Heaven.
Characters
Comes down to the human world
to become human
a cave with the bear
Founds Joseon
Succeeded his father, King Bu
On the night the dolmen was raised, the old priest went on with his story by the campfire.
had a son named Hwanung.
down at the world of people below.
The Legend of Dangun
The founding story of Gojoseon, as told in the Samguk Yusa
to the world of the people below.
benefit all humankind.
“Benefit all humankind” — the phrase Hongik Ingan (弘益人間) comes from these words of Hwanin.
Go down and rule.
Hwanin gave his son three tokens of Heaven: the Heavenly Seals (cheonbuin).
Leading a following of 3,000, Hwanung came down to the summit of Mount Taebaek, beneath the Divine Altar Tree.
Hwanung named the place Sinsi, the Divine City, and governed more than 360 matters of the human world, including grain, life, sickness, punishment, and good and evil.
and set wrongs right.
Around that time, a bear and a tiger lived together in a cave. Every day, the two of them prayed to Hwanung.
become human.
for a hundred days, and you shall become human.
It was a handful of sacred mugwort and twenty cloves of garlic.
One day, two days, ten days… The days in the cave were long and dark.
I can’t stand it anymore!
longer. Let’s hold on.
In the end, the tiger could not bear it and ran out of the cave.
Left alone, the bear endured in silence in the dark.
And then came the twenty-first day.
The bear had become a woman. People called her Ungnyeo, the “Bear Woman.”
human hands…
Ungnyeo had no one to marry, so every day she prayed beneath the Divine Altar Tree for a child.
a child…
Hwanung took human form for a time and married Ungnyeo.
In time, Ungnyeo gave birth to a son.
That child was none other than Dangun Wanggeom.
When he grew up, Dangun Wanggeom made Pyongyang Fortress his capital
and named his kingdom “Joseon.”
Later, Dangun moved his capital to Asadal and ruled the kingdom for 1,500 years.
Then he withdrew into Asadal and became a mountain god. He was 1,908 years old at the time, it is said.
become a person?
the story has come down.
This story, handed down for ages,
was written down long afterward in the Samguk Yusa, which the Goryeo monk Iryeon compiled from old records, and so it survives to this day.
And the story becomes history.
A capital ringed by earthen walls, a ruler on an altar. Gojoseon may have looked something like this.
I shall benefit all humankind!
Later history books reckoned the year Dangun founded the kingdom as 2333 BCE.
As the years went by, Gojoseon grew stronger and stronger.
Strong enough to rival its western neighbor, the Chinese state of Yan.
Word came that the ruler of Yan had taken the title of “king” and was eyeing the lands to the east.
then so am I!
Raise an army and strike Yan!
First, stop them with words.
The king gave up his plan and sent Minister Ye to Yan. Yan, too, held back its troops.
But the peace did not last. The Yan general Qin Kai invaded at the head of a great army.
Gojoseon lost more than 2,000 li of its western lands and was greatly weakened.
where do we go now?
We’ll have to find a new home.
Gojoseon had a code of eight laws. Today, only three of them are known.
shall pay at once with death!
shall pay in grain!
becomes a slave of that house!
forgive me…
To be freed from slavery, each person had to pay 500,000 coins.
It is said that the people never stole from one another, so no one ever shut their gates.
Toward the end of the 3rd century BCE, China was in great turmoil.
As Qin fell and Han rose in its place,
people fleeing the wars streamed into Gojoseon.
At that time, Gojoseon was ruled by King Jun, son of King Bu.
in the western lands.
One day, a man crossed the river from the west, leading a band of more than a thousand.
Hair in a topknot, dressed unlike a man of Yan, he was called Wiman.
Wiman went to King Jun and asked to settle on the western frontier, where he would serve as a bulwark guarding the kingdom.
and grant you a hundred li in the west.
with my life.
King Jun trusted Wiman.
Every day, new people gathered around Wiman.
Wiman, the man who crossed the river.
He was the man who would
change the fate of Gojoseon.
