Hwanung
Also known as: Hwanung Cheonwang (Heavenly King Hwanung)
Mythological Narrative
Scholarly Commentary & Evolution
## Descent to Taebaek
In the *Samguk Yusa* Dangun myth, Hwanung, son of the Lord of Heaven, receives three heavenly seals from his father and descends with three thousand followers to the summit of Mount Taebaek, beneath the sacred altar tree (*Sindansu*). He calls the place Sinsi, the 'City of God', and is called Heavenly King Hwanung. With the Wind Earl, the Rain Master, and the Cloud Master, he takes charge of grain, life, sickness, punishment, and good and evil, some three hundred and sixty human affairs in all, and rules and civilizes the world.
## The bear and the tiger
A bear and a tiger living in one cave pray to him constantly to become human. He gives them a bundle of sacred mugwort and twenty cloves of garlic, telling them to eat these and avoid the sunlight for a hundred days. The bear keeps the taboo and after twenty-one days becomes a woman; the tiger does not. When the bear-woman prays beneath the altar tree for a child, Hwanung takes human form for a time and marries her, and she bears Dangun.
## Reading the myth
The ministers of wind, rain, and clouds make Hwanung a bringer of agriculture and order, and many scholars read the bear and tiger as the totems of peoples who joined or resisted a sky-worshipping group. Such interpretations are modern hypotheses; the text itself tells a sacred story of the origin of the first Korean kingdom.
Academic Discussion & Critique
Exchange peer-reviewed hypotheses, comparative Indo-European etymologies, and archaeological field interpretations regarding Hwanung.
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