Seven Brothers & the Big Dipper and Hungbu, Nolbu and the Magic Gourds

Korean Folk Tales for Children #4

by Duance Vorhees (Adapter), Mark Mueller, Pak Mi-Son

Volume 4 of the 10 volume set Korean Folk Tales for Children. Bilingual: Korean and English.

Seven brothers help their widowed mother with such devotion that they become the seven stars in the Big Dipper.
Two brothers, one kind-hearted and one mean, plant some gourd seeds that were brought to them by a bird. When the gourds are opened, they reveal the difference between the fruits of greed and compassion.

Genres: Folk Tales

43 pages, Hardcover

First published September 3, 1990

Reviews

[Becky B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two Korean folktales that highlight the rewards of kindness. In the first story, seven brothers build their mother a bridge to help keep her warm and are rewarded by becoming stars upon their deaths. In the second story, Heungbu and Nolbu are brothers. They are supposed to inherit equally on their father's death, but Nolbu keeps it all to himself and mistreats his brother Heungbu. Heungbu and his family manage to make it through a tough winter, but they are still barely surviving. When they save a baby sparrow, the bird brings them two gourd seeds that when harvested prove to be full of riches. Nolbu sees the turn in Heungbu's fortune, hears the story and tries to get his own special gourds, but his gourds are full of something quite different.

I really liked the illustrations in "The Seven Brothers and the Big Dipper" story. They're simple, but sweet and very Korean in style. The morals of both of these stories are great. In the second story, the two brothers literally harvest the fruit of the way they act towards others. Good stories to use when talking to kids about their conduct and character. Also good book to use when studying Korea or world folk tales. There are a lot of folk tales and fairy tales out there about seven brothers, looking at several of them side by side would be an interesting activity.