Byeoljubu- Korean CreatureCreature
Also known as: 별주부, 鼈主簿, and 자라
Description
Sent by the ailing Dragon King to fetch a rabbit's liver, the loyal turtle Byeoljubu lures a rabbit to the underwater palace with promises of luxury — only to be outwitted when the rabbit claims to have left its liver drying on a rock on shore and must be returned to land to fetch it.
Mythology & Lore
The Liver and the Lie
Yongwang, the Dragon King, falls gravely ill in his underwater palace. His physicians determine that only a rabbit's liver can cure him, an impossible ingredient, since rabbits live exclusively on land. Among all the creatures of the underwater court, only the soft-shelled turtle Byeoljubu volunteers to journey to the surface and bring one back.
Byeoljubu travels to shore and finds Tokki the rabbit. He describes the wonders of the Dragon Palace, its coral halls and pearl-lit chambers, and promises the rabbit a life of luxury as an honored guest of the Dragon King. The rabbit, curious and flattered, agrees to ride on the turtle's back into the ocean.
Upon arriving at the Yonggung, the rabbit discovers the truth: the Dragon King intends to cut out its liver. Facing death, Tokki devises a ruse worthy of the danger. Rabbits, it tells the astonished court, can remove and replace their livers at will, and this particular rabbit left its liver drying on a rock on shore. If the Dragon King wants the organ, someone must return Tokki to land to retrieve it. The desperate king orders Byeoljubu to carry the rabbit back. The moment the rabbit's feet touch dry ground, it leaps away and mocks the entire underwater court for their gullibility.
The Song of the Underwater Palace
The story is performed as the Sugungga, one of the five surviving pansori masterworks. Some versions include encounters with animals who warn the rabbit not to trust the turtle, warnings the audience watches go unheeded. The expression "Byeoljubu's errand" has become proverbial in Korean: a task undertaken with great effort but doomed to failure.