Heungbu and Nolbu

Heungbu-jeon is considered a pansori-based fiction, which refers to novels that have been influenced by the narratives of pansori (a genre of musical storytelling). Heungbu-jeon is one of the five pansori that are still performed today, and Shin Jae-hyo’s Bak-taryeong (박타령; ‘Song of Gourd’) is one of the major editions of Heungbu-jeon along with Heungbu-jeon that was printed in Seoul. The five pansori whose songs have been passed down and are still performed today include Chunhyang-ga (春香歌;‘Song of Chunhyang’), |Sim Cheong-ga (沈淸歌 ‘Song of Sim Cheong’), Heungbu-ga (or Bak-taryeong), Sugung-ga (水宮歌; ‘Song of the Underwater Palace’, also known as Tobyeol-ga (토별가; ‘Song of Hare and Tortoise’), and Jeokbyeok-ga (赤壁歌; ‘Song of Red Cliffs’, also known as Hwayongdo-taryeong (華容道打令; ‘Song of Hwayongdo’).  

Heungbu-jeon is a typical mobangdam, or a story in which one person becomes successful for taking one action and another person who follows suit fails. It consists of a didactic plot in which good deeds are rewarded while evil deeds are punished and also features an animal that repays kindness with kindness and harm with harm. Folk narratives with such characteristics include the story of “Baktaneun cheonyeo” (박타는 처녀 A Maiden Who Sawed a Gourd)” from Mongolia and “Bangi seolhwa” (방이 설화; ‘Story of Bangi’).   }}; The story of “Baktaneun cheonyeo” is as follows:

Once upon a time, a virgin was doing needlework at home when she saw a swallow with a broken leg on the ground. She took the swallow and bound its broken leg with a thread. The next year, the same swallow returned to the virgin’s house with a gourd seed. When she planted the seed, a gourd plant grew and yielded gourds full of treasures. In the neighboring house lived an evil-natured virgin. Upon learning about her neighbor’s good fortune, she caught a swallow, broke it leg, and treated it. The swallow brought back a gourd seed the next year. When the evil-natured virgin planted the seed, a gourd plant grew and yielded gourds full of poisonous snakes that bit and killed the virgin.

The story of Bangi seolhwa is as follows:

Bangi was kicked out of his house by his evil younger brother. He wandered through towns, begging for food. Then one day, he was able to borrow land from a stranger. In order to farm the land, Bangi went to his younger brother and asked for some crop seeds and silkworms. The evil younger brother gave Bangi steamed crop seeds and silkworms. But Bangi looked after the seeds and silkworms as best as he could, and one of the silkworms came alive and grew to the size of an ox in about 10 days. Then silkworms within 100 li (about 39.3 kilometers) of Bangi’s house began to flock to Bangi’s house. Thanks to all the silkworms, Bangi became rich, and all his younger brother’s silkworms became his. In addition, one of the crop seeds that Bangi planted grew and ripened. Then one day, a bird took the ripened grains and flew into the mountains. Bangi followed the bird and encountered children in red clothes. He stole a magic stick that produced everything he wished for and became even richer. When Bangi’s younger brother heard about Bangi’s good fortune, he also went into the mountains but only ended up getting his nose plucked out by the children in red clothes.

Originally Heungbu-jeon had a structure of a folktale (mindam), and other aspects were added to turn it into a pansorititled Heungbu-ga (興夫歌 Song of Heungbu). As a result, the pansori-based novel Heungbu-jeon has dualistic themes prominent in folktales and pansori. In the Korean academia, these dualistic themes are described as an “apparent theme” and an “ulterior theme.”

In the structure of a folktale, an apparent theme of Heungbu-jeon is that good deeds are rewarded while evil deeds are punished. However, the pansori narrative of the same story reveals an ulterior theme—the emergence of a rich low class and poor yangban is disrupting the existing social order and hierarchy. While both apparent and ulterior themes are important in understanding Heungbu-jeon, the ulterior theme is considered to be more important than the apparent theme.

Among the many editions of pansori-based novels, Heungbu-jeon is the earliest one. Major editions of Heungbu-jeoninclude the 25-sheet edition published in Seoul (hereafter, gyeongpan edition) and Bak-taryeong (hereafter, Shin Jae-hyo edition). The publication year of the gyeongpan edition is unknown. However, the fact that later gyeongpan editions have fewer sheets per volume suggests that the 25-sheet gyeongpan edition was published around 1880. It is also difficult to pinpoint the time in which the Shin Jae-hyo edition was written, but it is estimated to have been written between 1870 and 1873.

Heungbo-jyeon (hereafter, Yenching edition), housed at Harvard-Yenching Library, is a handwritten version created in 1897 by transcribing the text of Heungbu-jeon from 1853. Akimi Hashimoto (橋本彰美) who transcribed the Yenching edition was a Japanese national who aimed to learn the Korean language, and he generally transcribed the original as is.

Of the different editions of Heungbu-jeon, the earliest version is Heungbo manbo-rok (흥보만보록 ‘Record of Heungbo’s Life’), which is presumed to have been transcribed in 1833. It is currently in possession of Professor Emeritus Song Jun-ho at Yonsei University, who is a descendant of Song Si-yeol (penname Uam). Heungbo manbo-rok differs from other editions of Heungbo-jeon in two major aspects:

First, the setting of Heungbo manbo-rok is Seochon, Pyongyang, which refers to present day Sunan-myeon, Pyeongwon-gun, in Pyeongan-do. All other editions of Heungbu-jeon that have been discovered so far have been set in a fictional town or the Samnam region (Chungcheong, Jeolla, and Gyeongsang regions). Heungbo manbo-rok is the only edition that states the setting as Seochon, Pyongyang.

Second, Heungbu’s surname is written as Jang. His father’s name is Jang Cheon, and this edition mentions that Heungbu passed the military service examination and became the progenitor of the Deoksu Jang clan (德水張氏). Deoksu Jang clan is a clan based in Deoksu (present day Gaepung-gun), Hwanghae-do, and the clan’s real progenitor is Jang Sun-ryong, a Uyghur man who became a naturalized Korean at the end of the Goryeo Dynasty. All other versions of Heungbu-jeon discovered so far have either not provided Heungbu and Nolbu’s surname or listed their surname as either Bak (homonym of the Korean word for gourd) or Yeon (homonym of the Chinese character for swallow), related to the plot of the story. Heungbo manbo-rok is unique in that it mentions the name of Heungbu’s father and also names him as the progenitor of the Deoksu Jang clan.

Based on the geographical locations described in Heungbu-jeon, some scholars have made conjectures about the region in which Heungbu and Nolbu had lived. The research concluded that Heungbu’s hometown is Seongsan-ri, Dong-myeon, in the city of Namwon and that Heungbu became rich while residing near Seong-ri, Ayeong-myeon, in the same city.

As Heungbu-jeon originated from a folktale, the claims made by this research are not very realistic. However, the city of Namwon has named the relevant region as Heungbu maeul, or Heungbu Village, and has been making efforts to turn it into a tourist attraction by discovering the hill on which Heungbu had fainted out of hunger and the grave of a person named Bak Chun-bo, whom Heungbu is presumed to have been modeled after.

Heungbu-jeon has been rewritten as a novel and poem, and adapted into a song, play, musical, madang nori (a genre of traditional Korean performance art), and film. The most recent adaptation of the story is a film titled Heung-boo: The Revolutionist, released in 2018.  

The different editions of Heungbu-jeon include three editions published in Seoul, handwritten edition, old metal-type edition, and dozens of pansori editions. Among them, the gyeongpanbon (published in Seoul) Heungbu-jeon and Shin Jae-hyo edition Bak-taryeong are considered representative editions.

In the recent years, Heungbu-jeon has been translated into several languages. The English translations are as follows:

H. N. Allen, “Hyung Bo and Nahl Bo, or, the Swallow-king's Rewards”, Korean Tales, New York & London: The Nickerbocker Press, 1889.

J. S. Gale, “Heung-Poo Jun”, Gale, James Scarth Papers, unpublished, 1921. Homer B. Hulbert, “The brothers and the birds”, Omjee the Wizard, Springfield, Mass.: Milton Bradley, 1925.