Paemshillang

1. Introduction

Baemsillang: Gureongdeongdeong sinseonbi (뱀신랑: 구렁덩덩신선비The Snake Husband: The Divine Serpent Scholar) is a Korean folktale about a woman married to a snake (baem) who broke a promise with her husband (sillang) and went through adversities to be happily reunited with him. This tale of a snake shedding its skin to become a man is also known as Gureongdeongdeong sinseonbi in Korea, which means “divine serpent scholar.” The hardships the wife endures in the story while searching for her husband is regarded by some as analogous to a priest attempting to once more receive a deity.

2. History and Transmission

Baemsillang assumes a narrative pattern similar to the widely known Cupid and Psyche myth. According to the Aarne-Thompson classification of folktales, the story can be considered a Korean version of Type 425: The Search for the Lost Husband. Baemsillang has been orally passed down in various versions throughout Korea so that more than forty-five variations of the tale have been included in major Korean folktale collections such as Hanguk gubi munhak daegye, or the Compendium of Korean Oral Literature.

3. Plot

(1) Summary

Once upon a time, there lived an old couple. One day, the old wife finally became pregnant, but what she gave birth to turned out to be a snake. The old wife kept the snake in the backyard. One of the neighbors happened to have three daughters who decided to pay a visit upon hearing rumors that the old woman next door had given birth. However, discovering that a snake had been born, they were all disgusted, except for the youngest daughter. Upon witnessing the snake, the third daughter said the old woman had given birth to a divine serpent scholar. When the snake grew up, it begged its mother to propose his marriage to one of their neighbor’s daughters. The mother went next door to propose, to which the eldest and second daughter refused. The third daughter, however, accepted the proposal and became married to the snake.

On their wedding night, the snake asked his bride to prepare a crock of soy sauce, a crock of flour, and a crock of water. The snake then slid into the crock of soy sauce, rolled about in the crock of flour, and finally bathed in the crock of water. When it came out, the snake had shed its skin and turned into a handsome divine-like scholar. The bride’s elder sisters grew jealous when they saw that their younger sister was living with such an exceptionally handsome gentleman.

One day, the snake husband made his wife promise not to show anyone his skin and went off to take the government service examination in Seoul. Unfortunately, the wife’s elder sisters came over to secretly search for the snakeskin and burned it. Sensing from Seoul that his skin had been burned, the serpent scholar disappeared. When her husband failed to return home, the wife set out to look for him. On her way, she met a crow, a wild boar, a woman doing laundry, and a farmer plowing the field and did what each of them asked her to do in order to learn the whereabouts of her husband.

By the time the wife caught up with him, the serpent scholar had already remarried and was living with another woman. He decided to give the two women a number of tasks and stay with the one who performed them better. The tasks involved challenges like chopping firewood, drawing water, and sneaking a hair from a tiger’s eyebrow, which the first wife carried out successfully while the second wife did not. The serpent scholar thus left his second wife and went back to living happily ever after with his first wife.

(2) Variation

Alternate versions of this folktale have appeared in terms of the snake’s birth, his marriage to the third daughter, and his reunion with her. Depending on the version, the female who gives birth to the snake is either an old woman or a widow. Most versions omit the process of impregnation while some describe impregnation from picking up and eating the egg of an animal or from being poked with a stick by a monk. When it comes to the snake’s marriage to the third daughter, one version illustrates how the daughter’s father at first rejects the snake’s proposal but later reluctantly accepts because the snake threatened that the whole family would be ruined if the father did not accept its proposal. Some versions offer detailed descriptions about the snake shedding its skin or the snake husband’s reunion with his first wife, while the same parts are briefly covered in other versions. Details pertaining to the third daughter’s journey in search of her lost husband tends to vary significantly depending on each version.

4. Features and Significance

The snake in Baemsillang is no ordinary snake. The fact that it sheds its skin to become a man indicates that the snake is a mystical creature. In some alternate versions of the tale, the snake threatens its mother that it will hold a fire in one hand, a knife in the other, and slide back into her womb if she does not propose his marriage to their neighbor’s third daughter. This is another scene that only makes sense when assuming the snake is a deity. And since it is a deity, the mother is compelled to give in to her son’s request.

The third daughter’s recognition of the snake as a divine serpent scholar demonstrates her wisdom in being able to notice the true worth of a person through the person’s interior rather than exterior. However, considering that the snake is a mystical creature, her first meeting with the snake could be seen as a deity’s answer to her prayers. The third daughter’s quest to find her husband after the burning of the snakeskin causes him to disappear signifies a process of attempting to welcome back a lost deity.

From the third daughter’s point of view, the ordeals she goes through reflect those female characters generally and extensively experience in Korean narrative literature. Her competition with the serpent scholar’s new wife demonstrates the conflict between the wife and concubines due to polygamy. The third daughter’s victory against the new wife represents the common female tendency to root for the wife to win against concubines.

5. Other

Baemsillang is a folktale like Sangsabaem (상사뱀 The Lovesick Snake) and Yaraeja (야래자 The Nocturnal Visitor) in which an animal shapeshifts into a human being. The tale also provided the Korean playwright Oh Young-jin with a motif for his play Maengjinsadaek gyeongsa (맹진사댁 경사 The Maengjinsa Family’s Wedding Day), which criticizes the way humans ridiculously tend to obsess over external aspects such as looks, power, or familial ties instead of internal aspects.

6. Sources

“Baemsillang,” Compendium of Korean Oral Literature.

“Baemsillang,” Compendium of Korean Oral Literature.

“The Sad Fate of the Snake Husband,” Compendium of Korean Oral Literature.

“The Wife Who Found Her Snake Husband and Lived Happily Ever After,” Compendium of Korean Oral Literature.

Further Reading

“Gureongdeongdeong sinseonbi,” Encyclopedia of Korean Language and Literature.

“Baemsillang,” Doosan Encyclopedia.

“The Logic of the Fantastic Imagination,” Textbook of Living Classical Literature.

Seo Dae-seok, “Gureongdeongdeong sinseonbi,” Encyclopedia of Korean Folk Literature.

Choi Nae-ok, “Gureongdeongdeong sinseonbi,” Encyclopedia of Korean Folk Culture.

Seo Dae-seok, “Gureongdeongdeong sinseonbi: A Tale About a Serpent Scholar’s Test and Recovery of Love,” Reading Korean Classics.