koreanlit1-2, Exercise 1: The Dangun myth

Model answer:

1. Hwanin, a heavenly lord, has a son, Hwanung, who wants to live on earth.
2. Hwanung descends to Taebaeksan with 3,000 followers and founds a settlement, teaching laws, medicine and farming.
3. A tiger and a bear ask to become human; Hwanung tells them to eat only garlic and mugwort and avoid sunlight for 100 days.
4. The tiger gives up; the bear endures and becomes a woman, Ungnyeo.
5. She prays under a sacred birch tree for a child, and Hwanung marries her.
6. Their son, Dangun Wanggeom, founds the kingdom of Joseon, later Gojoseon, with a walled city, Asadal, near Pyongyang (the location is disputed).

First recorded: the 13th-century Samguk yusa, "the earliest extant record of the Dangun legend". It claims to cite a lost Korean record, the Gogi, and China's Book of Wei. The Dangun article notes that the surviving Book of Wei contains no Dangun record, and the Gogi is lost, so the claim cannot be checked.

Sources: Wikipedia, Dangun; Samguk yusa.