Haetae, the Fire-Eating Stone Beast

To be perfectly fair, the stone beast that sits before the palace gate in Seoul is not beautiful.

It crouches on a tall pedestal. Its body is covered in scales, its mane curls tight like tangled hair, and on top of its head grows a single horn. Its mouth hangs open, showing rows of sharp, pointed teeth. From the side it looks like a lion. From the front it looks more like a dog. In fact there are two of them, one on each side of the gate.

Traffic rumbles past in front of it and visitors crowd around for photos, yet it keeps gazing in one direction only.

Koreans call it Haetae, or Haechi. The great gate it guards is called Gwanghwamun.

Yet such an ugly creature holds the place of honor, right at the entrance to the king's palace. Koreans have a ready answer for why, and it is an old tale that begins with fire.

The tale says that long, long ago, deep inside a mountain to the southwest of the capital, there lived a fire demon who was always hungry. It ate everything that could burn: trees, forests, dry grass, firewood. When there was nothing left to burn, it chewed on rocks, swallowing the hot part and spitting the hard part back out as a bright red stream that ran down the mountainside. Night after night, the people of the city looked out and saw a red glow cast up against the sky. They told each other that the demon was lighting the lamps in its house.

But what it loved most were things built by human hands. What it craved above all was the king's new palace, still bright white and freshly finished in the middle of the capital.

The demon was in no hurry. It waited for its close friend, the south wind, and made a plan in advance. The two of them would go up there and have a good dance, and the wind must be sure not to let the rain clouds hear of it. The south wind loved mischief, so it agreed at once.

That night the wind blew so hard that nobody wearing a wide-brimmed hat dared go out into the street. People shut their doors tight and sat at home playing board games. Then came a crackling, and then a roar. People in the city pushed open their paper-covered windows and looked out. In the sky they saw red tongues reaching high, as if licking at the stars.

Luckily, everyone in the palace got out in time. But when the sun came up, all that was left of the great building was a flat field of ash.

The king called a council together: firefighters, stonemasons, fortune-tellers, geomancers, and even men whose trade was taming dragons. They talked it over for weeks on end. At last they all agreed. They must bring a dragon from China, the kind of dragon that could call down rain and spout water in streams.

So the court spent no small fortune bringing home one of the biggest dragons in China, and kept it in a marsh near the city. And they spoiled it thoroughly. The dragon was given rewards like a court official. It got a string of amber beads looped over its ears, a horsehair hat, a nobleman's belt, and all the radishes it could eat.

Then the dragon made rain, far too much rain, and the fields flooded. When the people asked it to stop, the dragon sulked. Once it sulked, it stopped bothering to keep watch. It ate its fill and lay about all day, until it grew fat and lazy. And on the very night the winds went out dancing, the dragon fell asleep.

Up on the mountain, the demon looked down and saw its guard snoring. It climbed onto the back of the south wind, and only a few hours later, the palace had burned to ash again.

The council met once more, and every eye was red. The dragon was sent back to China, and this time well diggers were invited too. They spread out a map and studied the mountains, the valleys, even the direction of the wind. Then an old man, famous for understanding forests and water, pointed at the map.

"Every time, the fire comes up from the southwest, along this very valley," he said. "So we dig a deep lake right in its path. When it falls into the water, it goes out."

Well diggers from every region were called to the capital. They worked with picks and shovels for weeks, then brought in river water to fill the lake. That evening the whole capital went to bed with one comforting thought: this time it would surely work.

Sure enough, the demon crept out again. But this time the south wind was busy somewhere else, so the demon went alone. Rushing along eagerly, it plunged into the lake. It was soaked. It was shivering with cold. It very nearly went out. By the time it dragged itself to the palace, it had only enough strength left to burn half of it. Then it slunk back to the mountain, its belly still empty.

In the morning, the king gave a title and rank to the master well digger who had dug the lake. He also rewarded him with silk, white ginseng, a tiger-skin cloak and 44 strings of copper coins.

But it was not over yet. The lake had only slowed the demon down. It had not driven it away.

So the court sent for the master stonemason who headed his whole guild. The question they put to him was a strange one. Could he carve an animal that ate fire? And it had to be ugly. So ugly that the demon would take one look and turn tail and run. The stonemason had been waiting years for that question, but everyone at court had been afraid of the cost.

This time, the work went ahead. From deep inside a mountain, they split off a huge block of white granite. Thousands of people rolled it on logs all the way to the capital. They stretched canvas sheets around all four sides, not to hide the work from the people, but to hide it from the fire demon on the mountain.

Behind the canvas, the sound of hammers and chisels rang out day after day. Then one day, it suddenly stopped. The canvas came down. And the stone beast took its place, right in front of the palace gate.

The south wind carried the news up the mountain. It warned the demon not to come down, or it might get swallowed. The demon only sneered, and said it would go and see for itself.

That night it slipped out. Crossing the lake, it nearly drowned again, but it still struggled close to the palace. The stone beast heard it coming. Slowly, it turned its head. Then it licked its lips, just the way a toad does when a fly buzzes past.

The demon looked up at the stone pedestal. On it sat something it had never seen before, not in the sky and not on the earth. A thick coat of scales that flames could lick without effect. A tightly curled mane. And a mouth full of fangs, already hanging open.

The demon stood still for a while. It tried to picture those two jaws closing around it.

"Never mind," it muttered. "Home. No dinner tonight."

Then it turned its back. And it never came back again.

That is where the tale ends. The stone beast never had to fight a single battle. It simply sat there, turned its head, and looked. That was enough.

The story is still only a story, handed down by people of old to explain why a stone animal sits in front of the palace gate. But the beast itself is real, and the people of Seoul still love it dearly. On May 13, 2008, the city chose Haechi as its official symbol. It did so after asking the residents for their views and weighing 27 candidate images.

Koreans believe this creature can tell good from evil and right from wrong, and that it shields people from fire and disaster. Its picture is now all over the city, on buses, on taxis, even in front of the headquarters of the fire service.

Standing level with the beast's face, anyone can follow its gaze.

It looks straight out, toward the distant mountains. Its mouth still hangs open. Its teeth are still sharp. After all these years, nobody has yet found the time to tell it that the fire demon is gone for good.