Tales of a Korean Grandmother Read Online Free

robes of the officials. All welcomed Chu Mong and made him their king.
    "Many fleet horsemen and many skillful archers were trained in the kingdom of this Chu Mong. Some say it was he who invented the topknot, and who taught our people to eat politely with bowls, spoons, and chopsticks.
    "In his kingdom all lived in kindness and peace, and its ruler's fame spread abroad. Many years later to honor Chu Mong, so the tale says, men gave his name, 'Light of the East,' to the whole country. They called it 'Chosun,' which is to say, 'Land of Morning Brightness.'"

KI JA'S
POTTERY
HATS

    O NE afternoon, not long after the Ancestors' Feast, Halmoni and Ok Cha and the others in the Inner Court were startled by a great noise beyond the Middle Gate. The cries and shouts there brought the women out upon the little verandas and sent the small boys running into the Outer Court to see what was the matter.
    "It was a fight, Halmoni," Yong Tu reported, coming back, breathless. "A fight between So, the stableboy, and that peddler robber who carried away one of the saddles the last time he came inside our gates. You should have seen them, Ok Cha. Each grabbed the other one by the topknot, and they would not let go. Oh, they were rolling about on the ground in the dust. But the peddler was getting the worst of the fight. It was Uncle Chong Yang who stopped them at last."
    "There are far too many fights," Halmoni said, shaking her old head in disgust. "Our Emperor will have to bring back again pottery hats, like those of Ki Ja."
    "Pottery hats, Halmoni?" Yong Tu asked, dropping down on the veranda step by his grandmother. He was still out of breath. Besides, he thought these curious words might mean a story.
    "Wouldn't pottery hats break?" Ok Cha put in.
    "Yé, blessed girl, that is why it was decreed that all in the kingdom should wear them. I think it was when Ki Ja was emperor. Or it may have been during the rule of one of his forty descendants. At any rate, it was long ago when men were even rougher than they are today. In those days they were constantly fighting, pulling one another hither and yon by their topknots. Neighbor fought with neighbor. Band fought against band. Men swung their clubs if only to battle with a mosquito. It was not safe to walk abroad on city street or country road.
    "So Ki Ja sent forth the order that every man must wear a broad pottery hat, made of baked clay. Two feet across it must be, and shaped like a mushroom so that it came well down over his ears. There was a reason for that too, but I'll speak of it later.
    "On a light framework of straw the wet clay was spread smooth. Then the hat was put into a hot oven to bake hard, just like the. Of course the pottery hats broke easily, as Ok Cha has guessed. The slightest jar would send them flying off into the road where they would lie, broken in pieces. How could men fight with such hats on their heads?"

    Yong Tu admired the tall hats, made of fine horsehair, which his father and uncles wore inside as well as outside the house.

    "They might have taken them off," Yong Tu said practically.
    "No, clever boy, that was against the law," Halmoni replied, smiling. "A pottery hat cost a very large sum to buy, but it cost a larger sum to lose one or break one. A man must not only pay a big fine but also go to prison and be well paddled if he broke his precious hat.
    "The Emperor's scheme worked very well. With his topknot hidden safely under the great hat, and not daring to step outside his own courts without one, a man had no chance of taking part in a fight. Ki Ja's pottery hats brought peace once again to this unruly land."
    "And the shape of the hats, Halmoni," Ok Cha reminded her grandmother.
    "Hé, that was good, too. The great round hats were shaped like a dome, like the mourner's hat Neighbor Yi has been wearing ever since his father rode the dragon to Heaven last year. So big they were that men could not come close enough to one another's ears to whisper in