The Sun and Moon siblings

At a Glance

• Central figures: A brother and sister, unnamed in most tellings, children of a widowed mother who sells rice cakes; a tiger who devours the mother and pursues the children.
• Setting: A mountain village in Korea, in the oral seolhwa folktale tradition passed down across generations.
• The turn: The tiger eats the mother, disguises itself in her clothing, and comes to the children’s house demanding entry.
• The outcome: The children climb a tall tree and pray to heaven for rescue; heaven sends down a rope, and they ascend to become the sun and the moon.
• The legacy: The sister became the sun and the brother became the moon - or, in some tellings, they traded places because the sister feared the dark. The story accounts for why the sun is too bright to look at directly: the sister, embarrassed by people staring, shines so fiercely no one can hold her gaze.

Their mother sold rice cakes at the market in the next village. The path home crossed a mountain pass, and she walked it alone after dark, her empty tray balanced on her head. She had done this a hundred times. The children waited at the house with the door latched, the way she told them to.

The tiger had been watching the pass for three nights.

The Rice Cakes on the Mountain

The mother came around the bend where the pines grew thick and the moonlight did not reach the path. The tiger stepped out and blocked her way.

Give me a rice cake, it said, and I will let you pass.

She gave it one. She walked on. Around the next bend, the tiger appeared again.

Give me another rice cake, and I will let you pass.

She gave it another. She had started with a tray full. By the fourth bend, she had none left. The tiger asked again. She held up her empty hands.

Then give me your arm, it said.

She gave it her arm. At the next bend, it took the other arm. Then a leg. Then the other. The mother had nothing left to give. The tiger ate the rest of her on the last stretch of path before the village, and when it had finished, it took her jeogori jacket and her skirt and put them on. It wrapped her headcloth around its ears. It picked up the empty tray and walked down to the house where the children were waiting.

The Door

The brother and sister heard footsteps outside. A voice came through the door - rough, low, not quite right.

Children, open the door. Your mother is home.

The sister pressed her eye to a crack in the wood. She saw large hands, furred at the knuckles, gripping the tray.

Our mother’s hands are not like that, she said.

I was washing clothes in cold water all day. My hands are rough. Open the door.

The brother looked through the crack. He saw the shape of the body wrong under the skirt, the tail curling at the hem.

Our mother does not have a tail, he said.

The tiger said nothing for a moment. Then it threw its weight against the door.

The latch held. The tiger circled the house. The children heard its claws scraping along the walls, testing the plaster, finding the window. They ran. Out the back, across the yard, to the well - no, the well was a dead end. To the great tree at the edge of the property, the one their mother had told them never to climb because the branches were too high and the bark too smooth.

They climbed it now. The sister went first, fast, pulling her brother up behind her. They climbed until the branches thinned and the ground looked small below.

The tiger came around the corner of the house and saw them in the tree.

The Tiger and the Sesame Oil

How did you get up there? it asked, looking up with the mother’s headcloth still tied around its jaw.

The sister almost answered. The brother clamped his hand over her mouth.

Did you rub sesame oil on the trunk? the tiger asked, because it had heard somewhere that sesame oil helped with climbing. It found the jar by the kitchen door, poured the oil over the bark, and tried to climb. Its paws slid. It fell. It tried again, claws scraping, and fell again, harder. The oil made the trunk slick as river stone.

The tiger sat at the base of the tree, panting, thinking.

Did you use an axe to cut footholds? it asked.

The sister, terrified, whispered down: Yes. We cut footholds with the axe.

The brother stared at her. She had given the answer. The tiger found the axe by the woodpile. It chopped notches into the trunk, one above the other, and began to climb. Slowly. Deliberately. Its weight cracked each foothold wider as it rose, but the notches held. The tree shook. The children felt it shudder under them.

The Rope from Heaven

The brother looked up. The sky was black and clear, full of stars, and he did not know what else to do.

Heaven, he said. If you mean for us to live, send down a new rope. If you mean for us to die, send down a rotten one.

A rope dropped out of the sky. It was new - thick, hemp-smelling, strong. The sister grabbed it first and began to climb, and the brother followed. They rose through the branches, past the top of the tree, into the air above the mountain. The tiger watched them go.

The tiger looked up and tried the same prayer.

Heaven, send me a rope.

A rope came down. It was old, frayed, dark with rot. The tiger seized it and climbed. Halfway up - higher than any tree, higher than the ridge of the mountain - the rope broke.

The tiger fell into a millet field. Its blood stained the stalks, and that, some say, is why millet has reddish stems.

The Sun Too Bright to Watch

The children rose into the sky. Heaven made the brother the moon and the sister the sun.

But the sister was afraid. As the sun, she had to cross the sky in daylight, and everyone below looked up at her. She could feel their eyes. She had always been shy - she could not bear being watched by every person, every animal, every blade of grass in the fields.

She went to her brother.

Trade with me, she said. You take the day. I will take the night. No one watches the moon the way they watch the sun.

Her brother agreed. But heaven told the sister that even as the moon she would still be seen - people would look up at night and find her face. So heaven gave the sister the day after all, but made her so blindingly bright that no one could look at her directly. She crosses the sky every day, and no one can hold her gaze.

The brother moves through the night, calm and watchful, and people look at him freely. He does not mind. He lights the path across the mountain pass so that mothers walking home in the dark can see where the road bends.