The story of Dangun - finally finished and photographed

Thanks to my lovely daughter Julia for taking pictures for me, and to my husband Jim for making the wrought iron frame for the piece, and to Diane C for her wonderful advice and to the Chungs for helping with the Korean text and not minding too bad that I woke them up early to do it.

The myth of Dangun is the Korean Creation Myth. This piece will be in the NorthEast Feltmakers Guild exhibit next year, details still being worked out.  I have been working feverishly to get this done. 

About 5000 years ago, there were Hwanin, king of heaven, and Hwanwoong.
Hwanwoong liked the human world rather than heaven. So father gave him 3,000 servants and gods who control wind, clouds, and rain and sent him to human world. Hwanwoong became king of the world and helped them.

There was a bear and a tiger where Hwanwoong came to. Bear and tiger begged Hwanwoong to make them human. So Hwanwoon gave them a handful of artemisia and 20 garlics and said "If you eat this and stay in the cave without coming for 100 days, then you will be human." Like Hwanwoong said bear stayed in the cave and became beautiful lady, but tiger couldn't stay and couldn't become human.

Bear who became a lady is named Woongnyu. But Woongnyu prayed for marrige and baby. So Hwanwoong became human for a moment and married her. So she gave a birth to a boy, who is the founder of Korean, Dangun. After Dangun became king, he named the country 'GoChosun'. And he ruled the country well for 1,500 years.

Dangun is still respected as the founder of Korean. For example, there is temple serves Hwanin, Hwanwoong, and Dangun's soul; there is religion which respect Dangun as a god. In present time, Korean is celebrating Oct. 3rd as the national foundation day of Korea when Dangun first founded country.