A few times each year... at low tide, a land path 2.8 km long and 40 meters wide connect[s] the islands of Jindo and Modo... for about an hour...

According to a local legend, Jindo Island was once inhabited by tigers. When the creatures began threatening local villages, the people had no choice but to flee to Modo [island]. One young woman, called Bbyong, was accidentally left behind. Desperate to be with her loved ones, she prayed day and night to Yongwang, the god of the ocean, until he finally told her in a dream that a rainbow would appear in the sea, so that she could cross it. She woke the next morning to find the sea had indeed parted, and a rainbow road led her to the island where her family waited."

SOURCE: Atlas of Geographical Curiosities by Vitali Vitaliev (Jonglez Publishing, 2022) p.153.

Intrigued, I searched Wikipedia, and found a more accurate account by modern traveler Mukhammadolim Alimov.

In 1480, near the beginning of the Joseon Dynasty, Son Dong-ji was condemned to exile on Jeju Island. During his voyage to the island, the ship was wrecked in a storm, and Son drifted ashore at a place named Hoedong, or ‘Tiger Place,” because of the many tigers in the area. Son and his descendants lived in Hoedong for over 200 years. Life was hard and villagers were frequently attacked and killed by the tigers. Finally, Son’s descendants took a raft and moved to the nearby island of Modo. However, an elderly woman named Grandmother Ppong was accidently left behind. The old lady longed to be reunited with her family and prayed for help night and day to the Dragon King of the Sea.

Then one night early in March, the Dragon King appeared to her in a dream and told her to cross the sea by walking on the rainbow that he would provide for her. When she awoke, she ran to the sea and once again prayed to the Dragon King. Immediately, a rainbow-shaped opening appeared in the water between Hoedong and Modo. Grandmother Ppong started out over the rainbow path, but the exertion was too much for her, and she collapsed. Her family, crossing the rainbow from the other side, found her, and as she died in their arms, she said ‘I am happy because the Dragon King has reunited me with my family.’

Grandmother Ppong with a tiger, on Jindo Island, South Korea; sculptor unidentified. Photo by Strawberry Gumiho on Deviantart.com

The inhabitants of Jindo Island still perform an annual ritual in remembrance of the sea-parting miracle and grandmother Ppong, and many people come here to pray for their children and the people they love, so that their wishes come true. This Legend of Grandmother Ppong is written on a stone in three languages (Korean, English, and Chinese) near the shore where the annual sea-parting takes place.

Festival celebrating landbridge from Jindo to Modo, S. Korea; Ppong & tiger, lower left. Photo by M. Alimov

THE EDITOR IS CYNICAL TODAY

Hmm. If I stranded my granny on an isle of man-eating tigers, I'd go back to pick her up. It's a two-mile trip! Her exile had to be deliberate. The saintly Granny Ppong was either a tyrannical matriarch or feared as a witch.

It gets worse. Her miraculous escape forced her family to grit their teeth and welcome her back--she clearly had the Dragon King's favor. They couldn't openly drive her out or kill her. But did they just wait for her to die, or discreetly help her along? In either case, to avoid the sea-god's wrath, on her death they spread this myth of family loyalty. Over time, oral tradition heightens the pathos by making her die on the bridge, in the arms of those who loved her so much.

The dreamwork, on the other hand, is the same in all versions of the tale--and is plausible for a Korean shaman (or any dreamworker, really). She asks her dreams how to escape her tiger hell, and a local marine-science expert dragon gives her a solution. She trusts it, and it works--we know she made it across, or her family would have no miraculous granny to explain away.

So dreamwork saved her life. For a while, at least. "Escaping tigers," as Bilbo Baggins never said, "to be caught by relatives!"

--Chris Wayan

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