Bulgae

Also Known As: Korean 불개, “fire dog”; also written Bul-gae; the fire dogs of the Land of Darkness, called Gamangnara or Kkamaknara
Region/Culture: East Asia
Mythos: Korean Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Monsters and Beasts
Mythical Attributes: The bulgae are fierce dogs of a sunless kingdom in the sky that can carry fire in their mouths and are sent to bite the sun and the moon.
Role in Mythos: They are the cause of eclipses, since the dark part of an eclipsed sun or moon is the place where a fire dog has its jaws.
Relation to Humans: People on earth see the dogs only as a shadow crossing the sun or moon, and in old Seoul an eclipse of the moon was met with firecrackers and gunfire to drive the dog off. The tale was told as a plain explanation of eclipses in villages from Hamhung in the north to Eonyang in the south.

Above the sky there is a country where it is always night. The Korean storytellers call it Gamangnara, the Land of Darkness, or Kkamaknara, the pitch-black country, and its people get about by whatever dim glow they can find. They have a king, and the king has a problem that no amount of ruling will fix. He can look down through the heavens and see another world with a sun over it by day and a moon over it by night, and he has neither.

So he does what a king with a kennel would do. The Land of Darkness keeps dogs, fierce ones, and the fiercest are the bulgae, the fire dogs, animals that can pick up something burning and carry it in their jaws. The king calls for the best of them and gives an order that sounds simple. Go and fetch the sun.

The dog runs. It crosses the sky, comes up on the sun, opens its mouth and bites down. Then it finds out what the sun is. The heat is far beyond anything a fire dog has carried before, its mouth scorches, and it has to let go. It comes home with nothing and the king is furious.

He tries again with a smaller prize. If the sun cannot be had, the moon will do, and a second dog, fiercer than the first, is sent after it. This one catches the moon and gets its teeth in, and the moon turns out to be as cold as the sun was hot. The dog’s mouth freezes. Its teeth ache to the root. It spits the moon out and slinks back the way it came.

The king never learns. He keeps sending dogs, one after another, each fiercer than the last, and every one of them comes back with a burned mouth or a frozen one. That is the whole story, and it has no ending, because it is still going on. Whenever a bite of shadow appears on the edge of the sun, a fire dog has hold of it. Whenever the moon goes dark and coppery from one side, another has its jaws around that. The dark part is the dog’s mouth. When the light comes back, the dog has given up and gone home.

The tale was taken down from Korean villagers several times in the early twentieth century, far enough apart to show it was common property. Zong In-sob heard it at Eonyang in the southeast in 1912 and printed it in English in his Folk Tales from Korea in 1952. Im Seok-jae collected it at Sunchang in the southwest in 1915. Son Jin-tae recorded it at Hamhung, far to the north, in 1923, and published it in his Korean folktale collection of 1930. The three tellings agree on the dark kingdom, the king, the dogs, the hot sun and the cold moon.

None of them says where the fire dogs came from. They are simply there, in the king’s keeping, the way hounds are there in any great house. Nor do the storytellers describe them much. The dogs are big and savage and can mouth fire. No telling gives them a colour, a number of heads or a pair of wings. On the ground, bulgae is also the name of a rare red dog from the country around Yeongju, an animal with a rust-coloured coat and a reddish nose and claws, and anyone who had seen one would have had a picture ready for the dog in the sky.

On the night of 8 February 1887 the full moon of the first month rose over Seoul and then began to go dark. It was a partial eclipse, on the great moon festival of the year. The American teacher Homer Hulbert and the missionary doctor Horace Allen, both living in the city, wrote down what happened next. People said a heavenly dog was trying to eat the moon. Firecrackers went off in the streets, guns were fired at the palace, and paper discs cut to the shape of the moon were hung on houses. The air smelled of powder smoke. At about ten the shadow slid off, the moon came back whole, and the crowd outside the walls went on with its bonfires and music. The dog had dropped it again.

Biting the sky is an old idea in East Asia. In China the heavenly dog, Tiangou, eats the moon and has to be frightened into giving it up, and the Seoul crowd of 1887 was making the same noise for the same reason. The Korean tale adds its own turn. Its dogs are not driven off by anyone. They are beaten by the things they came to steal.

What a fire dog can do is specific. It can cross from one heaven to another at a run. It can close its jaws on the sun or the moon and hold on long enough for the whole world below to watch the light fail. It can carry flame without harm, which is the one reason the king thought the plan might work.

Its limits are just as exact. A fire dog can bear fire, but the sun is hotter than fire, and the moon’s cold is a thing it has no defence against at all. It cannot swallow either of them and it cannot carry them home. It is also a servant. It goes where it is sent, by a king who has been wrong every time and sends it anyway, and it will be sent again. The Land of Darkness is still dark.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Bulgae in Korean mythology?

A Bulgae is a fire dog from Korean folklore. The bulgae are fierce dogs kept by the king of the Land of Darkness, a sunless kingdom in the sky, and they can carry fire in their mouths. The king sends them to steal the sun and the moon.

How do the Bulgae cause eclipses?

The Bulgae cause eclipses by biting the sun and the moon. The dark part of the sun in a solar eclipse, or of the moon in a lunar eclipse, is the place where a fire dog has its mouth. The eclipse ends when the dog lets go and runs home.

Why can the Bulgae never steal the sun or the moon?

The Bulgae fail because the sun is too hot and the moon is too cold. A fire dog can carry flame, but the sun burns its mouth and the moon freezes it, so each dog has to drop what it has bitten. The king keeps sending fiercer dogs and every one of them fails in the same way.

What is Gamangnara?

Gamangnara is the Land of Darkness in the Korean eclipse tale, also called Kkamaknara. It is a kingdom above the sky where it is always night. Its king wants the light of the sun and moon for his people and sends his fire dogs, the Bulgae, to fetch them.

Where does the Bulgae story come from?

The Bulgae story is a Korean folktale recorded from oral tellers in the early twentieth century. It was collected at Eonyang in 1912, at Sunchang in 1915 and at Hamhung in 1923, and published by the folklorists Zong In-sob, Im Seok-jae and Son Jin-tae. Bulgae is also the name of a rare red dog breed from the Yeongju area of Korea.