The Tiger and the Dried Persimmon

Across a great sweep of mountains, no animal dared to look a tiger straight in the eye. The fox kept well away. The wolf tucked its tail and ran. Even the great hulking bear stepped aside whenever the striped shadow of the tiger slid past the thickets. And yet, one winter night, that same proud tiger was the one running for its life through the deep forest, its heart pounding, not daring to look back even once. It was terrified of something it had never even seen.

It all began on a long, hungry night in the middle of winter. Snow lay white over every mountain and forest, and no animal wandered close enough for the tiger to pounce. With an empty, aching belly, the tiger crept down to a small village at the foot of the mountain. It hoped to find a little something to eat before the sun came up.

Passing a thatched house where a lamp still glowed, the tiger heard a small child crying. The cries rose in long wails, one after another, and would not stop. The tiger halted behind a thin hedge at the far end of the yard, some distance from the house, and listened with curiosity.

Inside, a mother was holding her little one in her arms, rocking and rocking, and still the baby would not settle. She had sung lullabies and songs, and tried every way of soothing she knew. But the crying went on and on in the dead of night.

"Hush now, little one, the tiger is coming," the mother whispered. Her voice was half soothing and half a gentle warning, the way so many mothers speak when they have run out of ideas.

The tiger heard its own name and pricked up its ears, waiting. Out in the wild, countless animals had only to hear its roar for their fur to stand on end, and off they would bolt. Yet this baby inside the house was not the least bit worried. The crying grew even louder than before.

The tiger stood still behind the hedge, and a strange bewilderment rose inside it. Could it be that this small child was not afraid of tigers at all?

The mother tried another way. She reached over to the wooden tray beside the bed and felt around on it. She lifted up a string of dried persimmons, a deep amber yellow, and dangled it in front of her child.

"Hush now, little one, here are the dried persimmons," she said softly.

The crying stopped at once. The baby fell completely quiet, round eyes fixed on the string of dried persimmons. Then the little one snuggled against the mother's chest and drifted off to sleep.

The tiger stood frozen behind the hedge. In its head, one panicked thought spun round and round. The name of the tiger had not frightened the baby one bit. Yet the mere mention of something called a dried persimmon had silenced the child in an instant. What kind of thing could make the most stubborn crier go quiet just by having its name spoken? The tiger had never seen one, never smelled one, never even heard of this creature called a dried persimmon. It had no idea what shape it took, or how big its fangs and claws might be. But it must be huge, the tiger told itself, a hundred times more fearsome than any tiger. Without noticing, it had already begun to step backward.

The tiger backed away, slowly, slowly, then turned and fled straight into the deep forest. It did not dare stay a moment longer. All the rest of that night, the tiger lay curled up in a hollow among the rocks. Its mind kept painting every sort of shape for the monster called the dried persimmon. At times it pictured a beast bigger than an elephant. At other times it thought the thing might be a shapeless dark shadow that waited only for nightfall to appear. The more the tiger thought about it, the stranger its own familiar forest seemed. It was as if the woods were hiding some danger it had never known.

This is one of the tales that people in Korea have told one another, generation after generation. They tell it not to frighten anyone, but for a good, hearty laugh.

Toward dawn, while the mist still hung thick on the hillsides, a woodcutter was making his way home after a tiring day of chopping firewood. He had lost his way at dusk and had been groping through the dark ever since. His legs ached, and his eyes kept drooping with sleep.

In the middle of a clearing, he glimpsed a large, shaggy shape lying perfectly still among the rocks. In the half-light, he was quite sure it was somebody's ox that had wandered into the woods. How lucky, he thought. Here was an animal to lean on and rest his weary legs, and it could even carry him part of the way back to the village. He crept closer, put a hand on the warm back, and climbed right up to sit on it.

At that very moment, the tiger, huddled in its hollow among the rocks, suddenly felt a weight drop onto its back. The tiger jumped in fright, its heart nearly leaping out of its chest. Here it is, the tiger thought. The dreadful dried persimmon monster has tracked me down and come to take me.

The tiger sprang up and shot off through the thickets, between the rocks, over the steepest slopes. It could no longer even tell which way it was running. The woodcutter on its back was every bit as terrified. He clung with both hands to the thick fur, his mouth open in a cry that made no sound. All he could do was hug tight to the back that bucked and flew beneath him. And the two of them were thinking exactly the same thing. Each was sure of being carried off by the most frightening monster in the whole world.

They raced over hill after hill and through forest after forest, until the first light of morning broke along the horizon. The woodcutter opened his eyes a crack and looked down, and his heart went cold. What he was riding was no ox at all. It was a huge striped tiger, huffing and puffing, the fur on its neck bristling with fear.

He let go, tumbled off into a patch of grass, and ran as fast as his legs could carry him toward the village. He did not dare look back, not even once.

As for the tiger, the instant it felt the weight on its back vanish, it did not stop to wonder why. All it knew was that it had just escaped the fangs and claws of a terrible monster. So it ran on without a pause, deep into the mountains, never daring to stop.

Ever since then, whenever anyone mentions dried persimmons, people tell of a tiger deep in the forests of Korea. That tiger was once the king of the mountains and forests, more majestic than any other creature. Yet it was frightened out of its wits by a sweet fruit dried on a string.

When autumn comes to the region of Sangju in Korea, people still hang strings of ripe, plump persimmons beneath the eaves. Sangju makes more than half of all the country's dried persimmons. The strings of fruit dry in the sun and wind for about 45 days, until they turn soft, chewy and deeply sweet. To the people who hang them, those strings of dried persimmons swaying in the autumn wind are simply a sweet gift from the earth and sky.

But who knows. Somewhere out in the mountains and forests of Korea, there may still be a tiger, the most majestic in all the land, afraid of nothing in the world except a string of dried persimmons swaying in the wind.