Once upon a time, there was a single mother who sold rice cakes to feed her two children. Every day she would climb three mountains to go to the marketplace where she would sell these rice cakes, and everyday she would come back climbing these three mountains to bring her two children food. One day, while going back home with a basket of leftover rice cakes upon her head, She meets a tiger. The tiger says to her, "if you give me one rice cake, I won't eat you". And so she says, "please, these are for my kids! They have been starving all day". But the tiger proceeds: "if you give me one rice cake, I won't eat you" And so, the mother gives the tiger one rice cake. But the tiger goes on again. "If you give me another rice cake, I won't eat you". Trying to save some food for her children, she refuses. however, the tiger is too threatening not to relent to. And so this goes on over and over again until the mother has no rice cake left to give. The tiger says again, "if you give me another rice cake, I won't eat you". The mother says, trembling, "I don't have any more rice cake". And so the Tiger gobbles her up. But the tiger was still unsatisfied. He puts on the mother's clothes and walks to her house. Knocking on the door, he tells the children to open up the door. The son says to the daughter. "That doesn't sound like our mother". The two look underneath the door to check, and see two large paws with sharp claws. The son and the daughter run away through the back door, as the tiger stands there, trying to convince them to open the door. The Tiger sees them leaving, and chases after them. Heading to a cliff, the children are cornered. They pray to the sky, saying, "Sky, please help us survive!" From the sky, two ropes fall. Relieved, the son and daughter grab onto the rope and are lifted up into the sky. When the tiger reaches the cliff, he sees that the children are escaping by the grace of the sky. And so he prays up at the sky as well: "sky, please give me a rope and bless this good cat". The sky also sends the tiger a rope. Excitedly, the tiger jumps onto the rope and is lifted up. But the rope given to the tiger was a rotten one, and when he was in the air, the rope broke and the tiger fell to his doom. The two siblings who were lifted up into the sky become the sun on the moon. This is a folktale from Korea.
back next