The Golden Axe/Two Grateful Magpies

Abstract

A very pleasing book. The Golden Axe is Aesopic (though never acknowledged here as such) and nicely elaborated and illustrated for this culture. Dokbo lives in a village tucked away in the mountains. The artist misses, I believe, that Dokbo lost the head of his axe. Yunbo does not hear the whole story and so proceeds falsely with the old man water spirit. Yunbo falls in trying to grasp the spirit--and gets nothing but a cold.