The interesting legend of Yŭng-o and Se-o belongs to the year 158, though it scarcely merits the “once upon a time” of a nursery tale. Yŭng-o a poor fisherman lived with his wife Se-o beside the waters of the Japan Sea on the eastern shore of Sil-la. One day as Yŭng-o was seated on a great boulder beside the water, fishing, he felt the rock tremble and then rise straight in air. He was carried, to his great consternation, eastward across the sea and deposited in a Japanese village. The Japanese folk took him for a god and made him their king at once. When his wife found that he did not return from fishing she went in search of him. Ascending the same rock that had carried him to Japan she experienced the same novel extradition that had so surprised her spouse. She found him metamorphosed into a king and was nothing loath to become queen. But their departure brought disaster to Sil-la for the sun and moon were darkened and the land was shrouded in gloom. The sooth-sayers said it was because someone had gone to Japan. An envoy was sent post haste to those islands in search of the fugitives, but found to his dismay that they had become king and queen of one of the kingdoms there. He told his story and besought them to return, but they seemed well satisfied with the change. Se-o however brought out a roll of silk and gave it to the envoy saying that if the king of Sil-la would spread it out and sacrifice upon it the light would return. The event proved the truth of her statement and when the king uttered the words of invocation the sunlight burst forth again and all was well. It is an interesting but melancholy fact that most of the arguments used to show a Korean origin of things Japanese are based upon evidence nearly if not quite as credible as this story. The Japanese work entitled the Kojiki bears the same relation to the carefully detailed history of Sil-la that the Niebelungenlied bears to the works of Tacitus. When the time came for Su-sŭng, the sanguinary king of Ko-gu-ryŭ to die a young scapegrace by the name of Ch’a-da came to the throne. His idea of royalty was that it consisted in one long orgie. He attempted to carry out his ideal but was cut short within a year by the assassin’s knife. His motto, in his own words, was “Who does not wish to enjoy life?” Epicureanism may have existed in Korea before but it had never had so frank a disciple. Păk-ko a relative of the murdered king was called from a mountain fastness whither he had fled for safety. They had to ask him three times before they could convince him that it was not a mere decoy.