I chanced upon this book while browsing online and because I cannot resist a folktale collection (and more importantly, because I do not own any folktale books from Korea), I decided to pick it up! A Purse Full of Tales is a collection of twenty one folk tales from both North and South Korea.

Apparently, you can occasionally tell which tale came from what region if you’re alert, but that bit completely skipped me. Instead, I found myself must enjoying the stories, which do resemble the Chinese and Japanese tales, while still being uniquely Korean. Some standouts were:

• The Mud Snail Lady – a tale while reminded me of the Chinese legend of the White Snake and the Japanese legend of the Crane Wife, but with a different animal (you can probably guess from the title)
• The Forgetful Dokkaebi – a funny tale with an interesting mythological creature
• The Wood Cutter and the Heavenly Maiden – a tale which had elements of both Rapunzel and the Chinese legend of the Bird Maiden
• Rose and Lotus – A slightly scary story that had echoes of detective fiction in it
• The Good Girl and Her Stepsister – a tale that reminded me of Cinderella, and by that I mean the first edition version of the story.

As you can tell, many of these stories reminded me of other stories. It made me think of how folktales have been categorised by motifs and made me wonder if we can trace the influence of different cultures on the various folk tales – I’m sure that the similarities between East Asian cultures also arose from the tribute system/trade between the countries (as well as migration between them).

All in all, this was a delightful collection of tales that made me curious to find out more about Korean folktales as well as East Asian folktales more generally. And if you’re interested in fantasy based on Korean mythology, I really enjoyed The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh (my review)!