5/12/2023 0 Comments New Moon by Young Kim![]() ![]() The king always laid the blame at anyone’s feet: government officials had committed some kind of error . . . I always worried because whenever a drought struck, an accursed storm of blood always followed. Even in the fall, the fields turned not golden but a drab green, because people planted potatoes and corn instead of rice. Dogs, unable to bear the heat, shed their fur in clumps. Fat collected and grew beneath the horses’ skin, and formed into humps on their backs, and squirrels began to build their nests beneath the cool ground instead of in the trees. When a protracted drought struck the kingdom, the leaves of every plant wilted down into fine, sharp needles, and their stems bulged, to conserve as much water as possible. From the Annals of the Reign of King Taejo, Sixth Great King of Goguryeo, as recorded in the Goguryeo Annals of the Samguk Sagi ![]() In the tenth month, in the winter, a local governor presented a red leopard. ![]() In the ninth month of the fifty-fifth year, in the autumn, the King was hunting south of Jil Mountain and caught a purple roe deer. The day of the first full moon festival of the spring of the fifty-third year, the envoy of the Kingdom of Buyeo came and presented a tiger which was one jang and two cheok long, and had white fur and no tail. In the tenth month of the twenty-fifth year, in the winter, the envoy of the Kingdom of Buyeo came and presented a deer with three antlers and a long-tailed rabbit. In the fourth month of the seventh year, in the summer, the King went fishing at the Go-ahn pond, and caught a white fish with red wings. ![]()
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