Scholarship, office and exile
Born in 1640, Im Bang studied under the Confucian scholar Song Si-yeol. He passed the licentiate examination in 1663 and studied at Seonggyungwan, the Royal Confucian Academy. Government service brought senior appointments but also repeated dismissal and exile amid political struggles. He died in exile in 1724.
His writing shows a broader range of interests than the English title Korean Folk Tales might suggest. Suchon mallok collects poetic anecdotes and commentary, preserving work by women and Buddhist monks as well as established male scholars. His Cheonyerok gathers vivid stories of strange beings and otherworldly realms. Poetry, moral reflection and curiosity about unusual experience all belong to his literary world.
The tales and their English translator
The 1913 title page of Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts and Fairies names Im Bang and Yi Ryuk as its Korean sources and James S. Gale as translator. Gale explains that a manuscript of Im Bang’s stories had come into his hands; he also used thirteen stories by Yi Ryuk and added three anonymous tales. The English volume therefore combines distinct sources, rather than reproducing a single book written jointly by the two men.
Gale introduces the stories through Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism, but his preface also frames them for Western readers in the language of his own period. The English presentation thus adds Gale’s interpretation to Im Bang’s literary material. The tales bring extraordinary encounters into recognisable lives of officials, scholars, travellers and families. Their ghosts and transformations matter not only as marvels, but as ways of telling stories about human choices, power and obligations.
