They say that in ancient times a good king ruled Korea. But the disease does not distinguish who is good and who is evil: the king fell ill. Wise elders and doctors have gathered, they are trying to figure out how to cure the king, one offers such a drug, another offers another. The wisest of them, the most learned, came forward and said:
- The king became white as milk. This means that it is necessary to treat it with milk.
There was a noise:
— The law prohibits drinking milk!
“It’s better to die than to break the law!”
“Even the baby is not given his first milk when the mother’s milk disappears.”
Then the wisest and most learned man said:
— The laws of the Earth are written by the king at the behest of Heaven. The sky looks at the Earth with its own eyes - the stars. The stars blink and talk to us. Only stargazers understand their language. So they told me that in the Land of Morning Freshness, kings are allowed to drink milk.
The wise men stopped arguing and bowed before the wisest. The fact that the king was allowed to drink milk was announced throughout the country, just like nowadays, when important news is printed in the newspapers. But the milk did not help the king. He died. He himself became whiter than milk. And people put on white mourning clothes, all life in the country stopped, sacrifices, weddings, trials, punishments were prohibited, and fasting began. Another king has already sat on the throne. And people are still in mourning. They wore it for three years, and when they took it off, the other king also died. They put on mourning again. They removed it - the third king died. And white became the color of life - while the kings were dying, many people were born... So to this day, Koreans dress all in white.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru