Once upon a time, a young wife named Yun Ok
was at her wit's end. Her husband had always been a tender and loving soulmate
before he had left for the wars but, ever since he returned home, he was cross,
angry, and unpredictable. She was almost afraid to live with her own husband.
Only in glancing moments did she catch a shadow of the husband she used to know
and love.
When one ailment or another bothered people
in her village, they would often rush for a cure to a hermit who lived deep in
the mountains, and not Yun Ok. She always prided herself that she could heal
her own troubles. But this time was different. She was desperate.
As Yun Ok approached the hermit's hut, she
saw the door was open. The old man said without turning around: "I hear
you. What's your problem?"
She explained the situation. His back still
to her, he said, "Ah yes, it's often that way when soldiers return from
the war. What do you expect me to do about it?"
"Make me a potion!" cried the
young wife. "Or an amulet, a drink, whatever it takes to get my husband
back the way he used to be."
The old man turned around. "Young
woman, your request doesn't exactly fall into the same category as a broken
bone or ear infection."
"I know", said she.
"It will take three days before I can
even look into it. Come back then."
Three days later, Yun Ok returned to the
hermit's hut. "Yun Ok", he greeted her with a smile, "I have
good news. There is a potion that will restore your husband to the way he used
to be, but you should know that it requires an unusual ingredient. You must
bring me a whisker from a live tiger."
"What?" she gasped. "Such a
thing is impossible!"
"I cannot make the potion without
it!" he shouted, startling her. He turned his back. "There is nothing
more to say. As you can see, I'm very busy."
That night Yun Ok tossed and turned. How
could she get a whisker from a live tiger?
The next day before dawn, she crept out of
the house with a bowl of rice covered with meat sauce. She went to a cave on
the mountainside where a tiger was known to live. She clicked her tongue very
softly as she crept up, her heart pounding, and carefully set the bowl on the
grass. Then, trying to make as little noise as she could, she backed away.
The next day before dawn, she took another
bowl of rice covered with meat sauce to the cave. She approached the same spot,
clicking softly with her tongue. She saw that the bowl was empty, replaced the
empty one with a fresh one, and again left, clicking softly and trying not to
break twigs or rustle leaves, or do anything else to startle and unsettle the
wild beast.
So it went, day after day, for several
months. She never saw the tiger (thank goodness for that! she thought) though
she knew from footprints on the ground that the tiger - and not a smaller
mountain creature - had been eating her food. Then one day as she approached,
she noticed the tiger's head poking out of its cave. Glancing downward, she
stepped very carefully to the same spot and with as little noise as she could,
set down the fresh bowl and, her heart pounding, picked up the one that was
empty.
After a few weeks, she noticed the tiger
would come out of its cave as it heard her footsteps, though it stayed a
distance away (again, thank goodness! she thought, though she knew that someday,
in order to get the whisker, she'd have to come closer to it).
Another month went by. Then the tiger would
wait by the empty food bowl as it heard her approaching. As she picked up the
old bowl and replaced it with a fresh one, she could smell its scent, as it
could surely smell hers.
"Actually", she thought,
remembering its almost kittenish look as she set down a fresh bowl, "it is
a rather friendly creature, when you get to know it." The next time she
visited, she glanced up at the tiger briefly and noticed what a lovely downturn
of reddish fur it had from over one of its eyebrows to the next. Not a week
later, the tiger allowed her to gently rub its head, and it purred and
stretched like a house cat.
Then she knew the time had come. The next
morning, very early, she brought with her a small knife. After she set down the
fresh bowl and the tiger allowed her to pet its head, she said in a low voice:
"Oh, my tiger, may I please have just one of your whiskers?" While
petting the tiger with one hand, she held one whisker at its base and, with the
other hand, in one quick stroke, she carved the whisker off. She stood up,
speaking softly her thanks, and left, for the last time.
The next morning seemed endless. At last
her husband left for the rice fields. She ran to the hermit's hut, clutching
the precious whisker in her fist. Bursting in, she cried to the hermit: "I
have it! I have the tiger's whisker!"
"You don't say?" he said, turning
around. "From a live tiger?"
"Yes!" she said.
"Tell me", said the hermit,
interested. "How did you do it?"
Yun Ok told the hermit how, for the last
six months, she had earned the trust of the creature and it had finally
permitted her to cut off one of its whiskers. With pride she handed him the
whisker. The hermit examined it, satisfied himself that it was indeed a whisker
from a live tiger, then flicked it into the fire where it sizzled and burned in
an instant.
"Yun Ok", the hermit said softly,
"you no longer need the whisker. Tell me, is a man more vicious than a tiger?
If a dangerous wild beast will respond to your gradual and patient care, do you
think a man will respond any less willingly?"
Yun Ok stood speechless. Then she turned
and stepped down the trail, turning over in her mind images of the tiger and of
her husband, back and forth. She knew what she could do.
Source:
Korean fable
