Heungbu and Nolbu

Lore & Background

Nolbu, hearing of Heungbu's wealth, replicated his brother's actions but broke a swallow's leg himself. The swallow brought him a gourd seed; when Nolbu split his gourds, they released dokkaebi that beat him, debt collectors, and a flood of muddy water that destroyed his house. Nolbu and his wife lost all their wealth, realized their mistake, and asked Heungbu for forgiveness, after which they lived together happily.

Reader's Guide

The story of Heungbu and Nolbu holds cultural significance in Korea because it challenges the common Korean value that the eldest son is the most important child of the family. The tale is a typical mobangdam, where one person succeeds by an action and another who imitates it fails, featuring an animal that repays kindness with kindness and harm with harm. In Korean academia, the story has dualistic themes: an apparent theme that good deeds are rewarded and evil punished, and an ulterior theme—the emergence of a rich low class and poor yangban disrupting the existing social order. The ulterior theme is considered more important. The story was recently published in an American textbook named 'Literary Place 2, 3'.

Did You Know?

• The story is considered a pansori-based fiction, one of five pansori still performed today.
• Major editions of the story include the gyeongpan edition (published around 1880) and Shin Jae-hyo's Bak-taryeong (written between 1870 and 1873).