<녹두영감>과 <팥죽할멈> 설화의 문화사적 이해

“Mung-bean Codger”, one of the Korean Folktales, describe the fight between the codger and hares who intrude into the mung-bean field. And it was cultivated by the codger. The codger, who wanted to punish the hares, was fooled inversely. It is shocking to find the codger boiled his own grandson and set his house afire. The antagonistic relations between them centers in farming or agriculture. We can understand it as the fight between man and nature-animal in the age of the beginning of agriculture. The more man cultivated farmland, he more the other animals resisted as they were to be submit to threats by the mankind. The codger did not take a compromising attitude, but tried to do away with hares. He draw ruin upon himself.
"Red-bean Soup Grandma" is the antithetic to “Mung-bean Codger.” A grandma was sawing red-bean when a tiger came and threat her to vorant. The grandma beat him out with the help of straw-mat, needle, an A-frame carrier pole etc. Why did she win the fight when the codger lost? The grandma differ from the codger used the manmade and human-friendly tools. She was helped by the tools for life. She showed us how she formed the new relationship between man and the nature-animal. She won by arranging compromise measure and tried to present the female principle seeking the harmony with the surroundings.
Now we can cast a new light upon the Korean folktale "The Brother and Sister Who became the Sun and Moon." It also is a tale of the past, which shows the strife between man and nature, the response to the agriculture of humankind. Originally the kids in the "The Brother and Sister Who became the Sun and Moon" seemed to be killed by the tiger like the codger’s grandchild. That might be the real situation. And some of the versions of “The Brother and Sister” and “The Red-bean Soup Grandma” are resembling in repelling tigers using some tools.