Korean Fairy Tales (Annotated & Illustrated‪)‬

Author William Elliot Griffis was invited to Japan to organize modern schools in 1870. He worked for the Japanese education as a lecturer, minister and author. Mr Griffis was a member of the Asiatic Society of Japan and Korea of the University of Tokyo. While studying Asia, mostly Japan and Korea, he was fascinated by Korean cultures and fairy tales. This is his collection of fairy tales of Korea written 1911.


"Everywhere on earth the fairy world of each country is older and perhaps more enduring than the one we see and feel and tread upon. So I tell in this book the folk lore of the Korean people, and of the behavior of the particular kind of fairies that inhabit the Land of Morning Splendor. Yet, if I live long enough, I shall write the wonderful history of the Korean nation and civilization, which once so enriched Asia, and made possible the modem Japan such as we know today, of which fact the literature and art of both countries bear ample witness."

(William Elliot Griffis)