KOREAN DEITY: TALHAE

TALHAE – Also called Tarhae. The wife of King Hamdalpa of Wan-Ha in Yongsong had been married to him for seven years but had yet to produce an heir to the throne. She prayed to the gods for a child and at length she produced a large egg, from which a handsome boy named Talhae emerged.

King Hamdalpa’s advisors told him a child born unnaturally from an egg was a bad omen and that he should get rid of the child. Hamdalpa had the boy placed in a large floating chest along with seven treasures plus a male and female slave. A red dragon arose from the sea to guard the chest, a red dragon sent by a dragon god who was Talhae’s real father. The chest floated at sea for seven days, during which time Talhae grew to adulthood and stood a full nine feet tall.

Disembarking at Karak the young god bought even more slaves with his treasure and climbed Mount Toham, followed by his retinue. Talhae sat and pondered at the top of the mountain for seven days, neither sleeping nor eating. At last he decided to make Kaya his kingdom but found it was already ruled over by the god Kimsuro. Talhae challenged Kimsuro to a metamorphosis duel but Kimsuro defeated him in the form of animals of the land, sea and air.

Rebuffed the god decided that his next approach to gaining a kingdom to rule over would be more subtle. He and his servants moved on to Shilla where the crafty demigod had a whetstone and charcoal buried around the sprawling, luxurious mansion of a man named Ho. Next Talhae paid a visit on Ho and insisted the home was actually his (Talhae’s) by virtue of the claim that his ancestors had owned it long before Ho.

When Ho denied Talhae’s claim the demigod had the authorities dig up the whetstone and charcoal, which Talhae stated were his ancestors’ blacksmithing equipment. Ho was evicted and Talhae took over the estate. (If filming this myth it would be necessary to depict Ho as an evil man to avoid having the audience dislike Talhae for doing this to Ho) The current king of Shilla, Namhae was impressed by Talhae’s cleverness in this and other business transactions and grew so close to him that he gave him his oldest daughter Ani to marry.

Eventually when Namhae passed away Talhae and Ani became the king and queen of Shilla. After a long reign Talhae’s mortal body passed away and in his godly form he ordered his corpse to be buried in the hills of Sochon. Seven years later he returned in his godly form and ordered his bones dug up and used as the frame of a huge statue of himself to commemorate his reign. A shrine was eventually built to Talhae in the eastern mountains around Shilla.

FOR MORE KOREAN DEITIES CLICK HERE: https://glitternight.com/2011/03/24/the-top-11-deities-in-korean-mythology

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