A long time ago in Gangwon Province, in the village of Cheolsan, there lived a headman named Bae Moo Young. Rich, respected by everyone. But he didn’t have any children.
One day the headman’s wife dreamed that a celestial being had descended to earth and was holding out a twig with flowers to her, but the woman wanted to take it, and the twig turned into a fairy. A breeze blew and the fairy disappeared.
Soon the woman conceived and in due time gave birth to a girl, so beautiful that you couldn’t find anyone more beautiful. Bae Moo Young and his wife wanted a son, but their daughter is also welcome. And they named the girl Rose. Three years passed and their second daughter was born. Such a beauty. And they named her Lotus.
But then trouble happened, my mother fell ill. No matter what medications they treated her with, it didn’t help. She was about to die, and she said to her husband:
“I’m leaving you and I’m not at all sad about it.” I just feel sorry for my daughters. You bring another wife, but the best stepmother is still not your own mother.
Her husband and daughters mourned, and a little later Bae Mu-young brought another wife into the house. Young and ugly, freckled and grumpy. And how arrogant I am!
He does not boast about his sons. She has three of them. Bae Moo Young lives with his new wife, but he remembers the old one - kind and desirable. And he takes pity on his daughters and caresses them. And the stepmother is being taken apart by evil.
The daughters grew up smart, smarter than the stepmother’s sons, she envied her, and she planned to survive the girls from the house, and began to mock them. There is no way her husband will stop her. The stepmother becomes more and more angry; as soon as the father leaves the house, the girls cannot live from her. The father comes home, and the daughters cry, poor things.
The husband scolds his wife, but she does not want to listen.
And in the end the stepmother decided to get rid of her eldest daughter. She took a dead rat, put it in Rose’s bed, and she complained to her husband that Rose had miscarried the child and disgraced the whole family.
“I suspected something was wrong for a long time,” the stepmother said to her husband, “but I didn’t want to tell you, I was afraid you wouldn’t believe it.” And now I have proof.
The stepmother took her husband to Rosa's room and showed her the bed. Bae Moo Young looks, and there really is something lying there. Nothing can be done, the husband believed his stepmother, but did not listen to Rosa. The sisters cried all day and remembered their dear mother. But the evil stepmother does not calm down, she tells her husband to send his eldest daughter to her grandmother. And she pestered her husband so much that he had to agree.
And so, it was evening, he called Bae Moo Young Rose and said:
“I feel sorry for you, daughter, I know how you suffer.” It's better for you to leave. The grandmother will be delighted with her granddaughter, caress her, and caress her. She misses you, she's been waiting for you for a long time. So go tonight.
Rose was frightened, begged her father not to send her away, and said:
“I don’t want to go to foreign lands, and even at night, I don’t want to leave my sister.” How will she live here without me?
And the father repeats one thing:
- As I said, so it will be! The daughter does not dare contradict her father. Zhangsong will take you, your brother!
The stepmother and her eldest son planned something evil. He went out into the yard, sat on his horse, and waited for Rosa. Rose went to her sister to say goodbye and said:
“I’m leaving, this is my father’s will.” But don’t be sad, sister, I’ll be back soon. Look, take care of yourself!
Lotus cried and answered:
- How can I stay here alone! Come back soon! I'll be waiting for you!
Then the stepmother appeared, dragged Rosa into the yard, and put her on a horse. The evil Zhangsong took the girl away, no one saw her. It's dark.
They gallop through the mountains, gallop through the forests. We reached the lake. Zhangsong orders Rosa to come down to the ground, but she gets scared and asks:
- Why should I get off my horse? We haven't arrived yet. And I’m scared, it’s so dark!
As Zhangson shouts at her:
“You’ll live in the lake now, since you committed a sin and disgraced your family! I didn’t want to kill you, but your mother and father ordered it.”
Rose began to lament:
- Oh, woe is me, woe! I didn’t hear my parents order to kill me.
May God forgive me if I have done anything wrong! Apparently this was my fate - to disappear into the waves of the lake. My dear mother, so I came to you! Only I feel sorry for my sister, she will be sad and lonely without me! Well, now I will become a water spirit.
Zhangson grabbed the girl and wanted to throw her into the lake, but Rose escaped from his hands and threw herself into the blue waves. A cold wind blew in, suddenly out of nowhere - a tiger! Yes, so huge! Zhangson was frightened and wanted to gallop away, but the tiger threw him off his horse, tore off his ears, chewed his arms and legs, and Zhangson fell down the mountain.
The evil stepmother is waiting for her son, but he is still not there. Suddenly he looks - the horse has returned alone, without Zhangsong. The stepmother called to the servants, ordered them to take the torches, and they went to look for their son. We searched for a long time and finally found it. He lies unconscious, all crippled. They brought him home, he came to his senses and told everything how it happened. Here Bae Mu-young repented and began to scold himself for his cruelty. And he became even more affectionate and kinder towards his youngest daughter. The stepmother now planned to get rid of her younger sister and began to mock her even more.
The poor girl was waiting for her older sister to return, but she couldn’t wait and asked her stepmother:
-What happened to my sister?
And the stepmother laughed and said:
“Your precious sister is no more, the tiger tore her to pieces.” And he crippled your brother. Didn't you see it?
The girl returned to her room, began to cry loudly, and began to call her sister. And she didn’t even notice how she fell asleep. She saw Rose in a dream, she came out of the lake, turned into a yellow dragon and flew to the East (Japanese) Sea.
Then the Lotus screams:
- Dear sister! Take me with you! Don't leave with your evil stepmother!
Sister answers:
“I’m now in the kingdom of the dead.” The Heavenly King ordered me to fly to the Three Spirits Mountains for a miraculous drug. Don't worry! We'll be together soon!
The dragon roared and Lotus woke up. She told her dream to her father.
The father burst into tears. And then Lotus realized that it wasn’t a tiger who killed her sister, it was an evil man who killed her. The girl began to ask and pry Zhangson, and Zhangson admitted that Rose had thrown herself into the lake. The girl thought, thought and also decided to go to the lake to visit her sister. She came to her room and began to whisper:
- My dear sister! I know that you have now become the spirit of the lake. - She whispers, and tears are pouring down her cheeks. “Now I’m left alone in the whole world.” They say that even old people don’t want to die, but you died in the prime of your youth, you were seventeen years old. And how much torment you had to endure because of your evil stepmother! How much shame to endure!
I will come to you soon, dear sister!
But where is this lake? The lotus cannot be found. She was sitting somehow, thinking sad thoughts. Suddenly, out of nowhere - a blue bird. It flew in and fluttered right before my eyes. Then Lotus realized that the bird had flown after her to take her to the lake. Lotus wrote a note to her father, slipped out of the house unnoticed, and went after the bird.
Here is the lake. Suddenly Lotus hears a voice from the depths:
- Don't jump into the water, dear sister! Once you leave the human world, you will never return!
- Well, let it be! - Lotus shouted and rushed into the waves.
They say that to this day in that lake two sisters mourn their bitter fate.
There was a rumor that a judge had died in Cheolsan. He wasn’t sick for a day, and suddenly he died. From fear. The ghosts of his sisters appeared to him. His successor and two other judges died from the same thing. The sisters did not harm anyone, they only wanted people to know about their unfortunate fate. But people, weak by nature, died of fear at the sight of ghosts. The provincial governor reported everything to the king. He sent a high dignitary to find out what was going on and report. Jong Dong Ho, that was the name of the dignitary, arrived in Cheolsan, settled down in a brightly lit residence and began to read aloud lines from the I Ching.
At exactly midnight, a chill blew through the hall, and a girl in a green jacket and a dark red skirt appeared in front of Jung Dong Ho. The judge asked what he could do to help her.
“I am the daughter of Bae Mu-young from Cheolsan,” the girl answered, “my name is Lotus, and my older sister is Rose.” The evil stepmother ruined us. Her father brought her into the house when her mother died. The stepmother dishonored her older sister, put a dead rat in her bed and said that her sister was having a miscarriage. The sister threw herself into the lake and drowned.
The girl said so and disappeared.
The next morning, Jung Dong Ho began investigating. He found out which family the sisters were from, asked about the mysterious lake and ordered Bae Mu-young and his wife to be taken into custody. Judge Bae Moo Young was interrogated. First of all I asked:
- How many children do you have?
“Two daughters and three sons,” answered Bae Mu-yong, “only the daughters died long ago.”
- Why did they die? - asked the judge.
“From illness,” Bae Mu-young answered.
“Tell the truth,” the judge ordered. - You still can’t fool me!
Here the stepmother intervened in the conversation and said:
“The eldest daughter disgraced not only herself, but our entire family.”
She sinned, miscarried her child, and then drowned herself, and her youngest daughter ran away from home, Mr. Judge.
- Where is the evidence that your daughter had a miscarriage? - the judge continued.
“Here they are, sir,” answered the stepmother, pulling out from her bosom something that looked like a baby.
Seeing this, the judge decided to postpone the trial, stated that the case required further investigation, and released Bae Mu-young and his wife.
At night, the sisters again came to Jung Dong Ho, taught him how to prove his stepmother’s guilt and his father’s innocence, and flew away on a blue crane.
The next morning, Jung Dong Ho sat in the judge's chair again and called Bae Moo Young and his wife. He ordered the package to be unwrapped and found a lump of rat droppings in it. Bae Moo Young realized then that his wife had fooled him around her little finger, but his wife wouldn’t admit it, but she kept repeating herself.
Jung Dong Ho sent a report to the provincial governor, and he issued a verdict:
The stepmother will be quartered, her eldest son will be hanged, and Bae Mu-young will be released.
Bae Mu-young went to the lake, found his daughters at the bottom, and they looked like they were alive.
Bae Mu-yeon took his daughters to the mountainside, chose a place for the graves, buried his daughters, and built a monument.
And Jong Dong Ho became famous throughout the country for his justice and received a high position. Rose and Lotus appeared to him, thanked him for his wisdom and kindness, and bowed.
Bae Mu-young lived alone for a long time, and then married again. He married the daughter of Im Gwang Ho, a famous and rich man. Beautiful, kind, young - she was seventeen years old.
One day his two daughters appeared to Bae Mu-yong in a dream and said:
- We no longer live in the lake - we live in the Kingdom of Heaven. And the king commanded us to return to earth, to you. Isn't this great happiness?
Bae Moo Young wanted to take his daughters by the hands, but then the rooster crowed and he woke up. He went in to see his young wife, and she was holding two flowers in her hands: a rose and a lotus. The husband asks where the flowers come from, and the wife answers:
“This night a heavenly fairy came to me and said: “The Heavenly King is sending you these flowers. Take care of them, grow, and happiness will come to you.” I woke up and saw that I had a flower in each hand.
Bae Moo Young and his wife put flowers in a vase. Soon the wife suffered; When I gave birth to two twin girls, the flowers disappeared from the vase. One daughter was named Rose, the other Lotus. Time flies quickly. The girls grew up, they were fifteen years old. And they were so similar to the dead daughters of Bae Mu-young that it was impossible to tell them apart. They were married by twin brothers, the sons of the powerful yangban Lee Yong Ho from a neighboring county. The brothers passed the exams for the position and became important dignitaries. Once upon a time in the province of Gangwon, in the village of Cheolsan, there lived a headman named Bae Mu-yong. Rich, respected by everyone. But he didn’t have any children.
One day the headman’s wife dreamed that a celestial being had descended to earth and was holding out a twig with flowers to her, but the woman wanted to take it, and the twig turned into a fairy. A breeze blew and the fairy disappeared.
Soon the woman conceived and in due time gave birth to a girl, so beautiful that you couldn’t find anyone more beautiful. Bae Moo Young and his wife wanted a son, but their daughter is also welcome. And they named the girl Rose. Three years passed and their second daughter was born. Such a beauty. And they named her Lotus.
But then trouble happened, my mother fell ill. No matter what medications they treated her with, it didn’t help. She was about to die, and she said to her husband:
“I’m leaving you and I’m not at all sad about it.” I just feel sorry for my daughters. You bring another wife, but the best stepmother is still not your own mother.
Her husband and daughters mourned, and a little later Bae Mu-young brought another wife into the house. Young and ugly, freckled and grumpy. And how arrogant I am!
He does not boast about his sons. She has three of them. Bae Moo Young lives with his new wife, but he remembers the old one - kind and desirable. And he takes pity on his daughters and caresses them. And the stepmother is being taken apart by evil.
The daughters grew up smart, smarter than the stepmother’s sons, she envied her, and she planned to survive the girls from the house, and began to mock them. There is no way her husband will stop her. The stepmother becomes more and more angry; as soon as the father leaves the house, the girls cannot live from her. The father comes home, and the daughters cry, poor things.
The husband scolds his wife, but she does not want to listen.
And in the end the stepmother decided to get rid of her eldest daughter. She took a dead rat, put it in Rose’s bed, and she complained to her husband that Rose had miscarried the child and disgraced the whole family.
“I suspected something was wrong for a long time,” the stepmother said to her husband, “but I didn’t want to tell you, I was afraid you wouldn’t believe it.” And now I have proof.
The stepmother took her husband to Rosa's room and showed her the bed. Bae Moo Young looks, and there really is something lying there. Nothing can be done, the husband believed his stepmother, but did not listen to Rosa. The sisters cried all day and remembered their dear mother. But the evil stepmother does not calm down, she tells her husband to send his eldest daughter to her grandmother. And she pestered her husband so much that he had to agree.
And so, it was evening, he called Bae Moo Young Rose and said:
“I feel sorry for you, daughter, I know how you suffer.” It's better for you to leave. The grandmother will be delighted with her granddaughter, caress her, and caress her. She misses you, she's been waiting for you for a long time. So go tonight.
Rose was frightened, begged her father not to send her away, and said:
“I don’t want to go to foreign lands, and even at night, I don’t want to leave my sister.” How will she live here without me?
And the father repeats one thing:
- As I said, so it will be! The daughter does not dare contradict her father. Zhangsong will take you, your brother!
The stepmother and her eldest son planned something evil. He went out into the yard, sat on his horse, and waited for Rosa. Rose went to her sister to say goodbye and said:
“I’m leaving, this is my father’s will.” But don’t be sad, sister, I’ll be back soon. Look, take care of yourself!
Lotus cried and answered:
- How can I stay here alone! Come back soon! I'll be waiting for you!
Then the stepmother appeared, dragged Rosa into the yard, and put her on a horse. The evil Zhangsong took the girl away, no one saw her. It's dark.
They gallop through the mountains, gallop through the forests. We reached the lake. Zhangsong orders Rosa to come down to the ground, but she gets scared and asks:
- Why should I get off my horse? We haven't arrived yet. And I’m scared, it’s so dark!
As Zhangson shouts at her:
“You’ll live in the lake now, since you committed a sin and disgraced your family! I didn’t want to kill you, but your mother and father ordered it.”
Rose began to lament:
- Oh, woe is me, woe! I didn’t hear my parents order to kill me.
May God forgive me if I have done anything wrong! Apparently this was my fate - to disappear into the waves of the lake. My dear mother, so I came to you! Only I feel sorry for my sister, she will be sad and lonely without me! Well, now I will become a water spirit.
Zhangson grabbed the girl and wanted to throw her into the lake, but Rose escaped from his hands and threw herself into the blue waves. A cold wind blew in, suddenly out of nowhere - a tiger! Yes, so huge! Zhangson was frightened and wanted to gallop away, but the tiger threw him off his horse, tore off his ears, chewed his arms and legs, and Zhangson fell down the mountain.
The evil stepmother is waiting for her son, but he is still not there. Suddenly he looks - the horse has returned alone, without Zhangsong. The stepmother called to the servants, ordered them to take the torches, and they went to look for their son. We searched for a long time and finally found it. He lies unconscious, all crippled. They brought him home, he came to his senses and told everything how it happened. Here Bae Mu-young repented and began to scold himself for his cruelty. And he became even more affectionate and kinder towards his youngest daughter. The stepmother now planned to get rid of her younger sister and began to mock her even more.
The poor girl was waiting for her older sister to return, but she couldn’t wait and asked her stepmother:
-What happened to my sister?
And the stepmother laughed and said:
“Your precious sister is no more, the tiger tore her to pieces.” And he crippled your brother. Didn't you see it?
The girl returned to her room, began to cry loudly, and began to call her sister. And she didn’t even notice how she fell asleep. She saw Rose in a dream, she came out of the lake, turned into a yellow dragon and flew to the East (Japanese) Sea.
Then the Lotus screams:
- Dear sister! Take me with you! Don't leave with your evil stepmother!
Sister answers:
“I’m now in the kingdom of the dead.” The Heavenly King ordered me to fly to the Three Spirits Mountains for a miraculous drug. Don't worry! We'll be together soon!
The dragon roared and Lotus woke up. She told her dream to her father.
The father burst into tears. And then Lotus realized that it wasn’t a tiger who killed her sister, it was an evil man who killed her. The girl began to ask and pry Zhangson, and Zhangson admitted that Rose had thrown herself into the lake. The girl thought, thought and also decided to go to the lake to visit her sister. She came to her room and began to whisper:
- My dear sister! I know that you have now become the spirit of the lake. - She whispers, and tears are pouring down her cheeks. “Now I’m left alone in the whole world.” They say that even old people don’t want to die, but you died in the prime of your youth, you were seventeen years old. And how much torment you had to endure because of your evil stepmother! How much shame to endure!
I will come to you soon, dear sister!
But where is this lake? The lotus cannot be found. She was sitting somehow, thinking sad thoughts. Suddenly, out of nowhere - a blue bird. It flew in and fluttered right before my eyes. Then Lotus realized that the bird had flown after her to take her to the lake. Lotus wrote a note to her father, slipped out of the house unnoticed, and went after the bird.
Here is the lake. Suddenly Lotus hears a voice from the depths:
- Don't jump into the water, dear sister! Once you leave the human world, you will never return!
- Well, let it be! - Lotus shouted and rushed into the waves.
They say that to this day in that lake two sisters mourn their bitter fate.
There was a rumor that a judge had died in Cheolsan. He wasn’t sick for a day, and suddenly he died. From fear. The ghosts of his sisters appeared to him. His successor and two other judges died from the same thing. The sisters did not harm anyone, they only wanted people to know about their unfortunate fate. But people, weak by nature, died of fear at the sight of ghosts. The provincial governor reported everything to the king. He sent a high dignitary to find out what was going on and report. Jong Dong Ho, that was the name of the dignitary, arrived in Cheolsan, settled down in a brightly lit residence and began to read aloud lines from the I Ching.
At exactly midnight, a chill blew through the hall, and a girl in a green jacket and a dark red skirt appeared in front of Jung Dong Ho. The judge asked what he could do to help her.
“I am the daughter of Bae Mu-young from Cheolsan,” the girl answered, “my name is Lotus, and my older sister is Rose.” The evil stepmother ruined us. Her father brought her into the house when her mother died. The stepmother dishonored her older sister, put a dead rat in her bed and said that her sister was having a miscarriage. The sister threw herself into the lake and drowned.
The girl said so and disappeared.
The next morning, Jung Dong Ho began investigating. He found out which family the sisters were from, asked about the mysterious lake and ordered Bae Mu-young and his wife to be taken into custody. Judge Bae Moo Young was interrogated. First of all I asked:
- How many children do you have?
“Two daughters and three sons,” answered Bae Mu-yong, “only the daughters died long ago.”
- Why did they die? - asked the judge.
“From illness,” Bae Mu-young answered.
“Tell the truth,” the judge ordered. - You still can’t fool me!
Here the stepmother intervened in the conversation and said:
“The eldest daughter disgraced not only herself, but our entire family.”
She sinned, miscarried her child, and then drowned herself, and her youngest daughter ran away from home, Mr. Judge.
- Where is the evidence that your daughter had a miscarriage? - the judge continued.
“Here they are, sir,” answered the stepmother, pulling out from her bosom something that looked like a baby.
Seeing this, the judge decided to postpone the trial, stated that the case required further investigation, and released Bae Mu-young and his wife.
At night, the sisters again came to Jung Dong Ho, taught him how to prove his stepmother’s guilt and his father’s innocence, and flew away on a blue crane.
The next morning, Jung Dong Ho sat in the judge's chair again and called Bae Moo Young and his wife. He ordered the package to be unwrapped and found a lump of rat droppings in it. Bae Moo Young realized then that his wife had fooled him around her little finger, but his wife wouldn’t admit it, but she kept repeating herself.
Jung Dong Ho sent a report to the provincial governor, and he issued a verdict:
The stepmother will be quartered, her eldest son will be hanged, and Bae Mu-young will be released.
Bae Mu-young went to the lake, found his daughters at the bottom, and they looked like they were alive.
Bae Mu-yeon took his daughters to the mountainside, chose a place for the graves, buried his daughters, and built a monument.
And Jong Dong Ho became famous throughout the country for his justice and received a high position. Rose and Lotus appeared to him, thanked him for his wisdom and kindness, and bowed.
Bae Mu-young lived alone for a long time, and then married again. He married the daughter of Im Gwang Ho, a famous and rich man. Beautiful, kind, young - she was seventeen years old.
One day his two daughters appeared to Bae Mu-yong in a dream and said:
- We no longer live in the lake - we live in the Kingdom of Heaven. And the king commanded us to return to earth, to you. Isn't this great happiness?
Bae Moo Young wanted to take his daughters by the hands, but then the rooster crowed and he woke up. He went in to see his young wife, and she was holding two flowers in her hands: a rose and a lotus. The husband asks where the flowers come from, and the wife answers:
“This night a heavenly fairy came to me and said: “The Heavenly King is sending you these flowers. Take care of them, grow, and happiness will come to you.” I woke up and saw that I had a flower in each hand.
Bae Moo Young and his wife put flowers in a vase. Soon the wife suffered; When I gave birth to two twin girls, the flowers disappeared from the vase. One daughter was named Rose, the other Lotus. Time flies quickly. The girls grew up, they were fifteen years old. And they were so similar to the dead daughters of Bae Mu-young that it was impossible to tell them apart. They were married by twin brothers, the sons of the powerful yangban Lee Yong Ho from a neighboring county. The brothers passed the exams for the position and became important dignitaries.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru