Clothes make the Man
“Fine feathers make fine birds.” Widely understanding, this proverb has the same meaning as “Fine clothes make a man.” At the Fairy and the Woodcutter, one of the most popular of all Korean folktales, is telling a story about the wing clothes and the beautiful love of the two protagonists. + “There once was a poor woodcutter who lived with his mother. One day, he helped a wounded deer escape from hunters.” “As a show of gratitude, the deer informed the woodcutter of a nearby pond where fairies came down from heaven to bathe every month. According to advice of the deer, the woodcutter hid the fairy’s winged clothing and was able to marry one of the fairies.” In this beautiful love story, the poor woodcutter lived happily with the fairy until he had two children. However, he forgot her deer’s advice to never return her fairy wings, which he had hidden before giving birth to three children, and gave them back to her fairy. Then the fairy returned to heaven. In this way, the fair...