D for Dokkaebi

For this week's D letter of Alphabeasts [link] I tried out a Korean creature called a Dokkaebi. These guys are a kind of mischievous troll or sometimes the transformative spirit of an inanimate object. They delight in games and tricks and especially love wrestling, which they are particularly good at. Sometimes they are found with a magical club with which they can make items appear. However, they must take these items from some other place and magically transport them, they can’t just create stuff outta thin air.

I really liked this story that appears on the Dokkaebi Wikipedia page:

“Most Korean legends have Dokkaebi in the stories. They are about Dokkaebi pranking on mortals or punishing them because of their evil deeds. One of them is about an old man who lived alone in a mountain when a Dokkaebi visited his house. With surprise, the kind old man gave the Dokkaebi an alcoholic beverage and they become friends. The Dokkaebi visited the old man often and they had long conversations together, but one day, the man took a walk by himself in the woods near the river and discovered that his reflection looked like the Dokkaebi. With fear, he realized that he was gradually becoming that creature. The man made a plan to prevent himself from becoming a Dokkaebi and invited the creature to his house. He asked, “What are you most afraid of?” and the Dokkaebi answered, “I’m afraid of blood. What are you afraid of?”. The man pretended to be frightened and said, “I’m afraid of money. That’s why I live in the mountains by myself.” The next day, the old man killed a cow and poured its blood all over his house. The Dokkaebi, with shock and great anger, ran away and said, “I’ll be back with your greatest fear!” The next day, the Dokkaebi brought bags of money and threw it to the old man. After that, Dokkaebi never came back and the old man became the richest person in the town.”