The Woodman and the Mountain Fairies

The Woodman and the Mountain Fairies

Long ago, a woodcutter named Kil Wi lived in a small village near Pyongyang.

He was not rich, but he had a warm home, a wife, children and a large, gentle ox. The ox helped transport firewood from the mountains to the village. The children loved him so much that they decorated his horns with ribbons, stroked his broad forehead and brought him the juiciest grass.

Every fifth day there was a fair in the village square. Kil Wi sold bundles of brushwood and logs there, and then bought rice, oil, salt and everything else his family needed.

One summer morning, he set off alone into the mountains. Trees for firewood near the village had long since been cut down, so the woodcutters had to go farther and farther.

“Come back for dinner!” his wife called from the threshold. “The eldest son went fishing. There will be a good soup today.”

“I’ll be home by sunset,” Kil Wi promised.

He slung his axe over his shoulder and set off up the trail.

At first the road was familiar. Then he began to walk through places he had rarely visited. The pines were thick, thin streams ran between the rocks, and a cool mist hung over the ferns.

Kil Wi found a small clearing and was about to get to work when he noticed two strangers ahead of him.

They were sitting on flat stones in front of a board with black and white stones, playing Go. They were wearing strange, ancient clothes, as if they had stepped out of a very ancient drawing. Their long hair fell to their shoulders, and their faces were calm and attentive.

Kil Wi immediately realized that these were no ordinary travelers.

“Probably mountain spirits or fairies,” he thought.

He bowed politely and was about to leave so as not to disturb anyone, but one of the players smiled faintly and nodded to the empty seat next to him.

Kil Wi sat down.

The game fascinated him. Black stones surrounded white ones, and white stones opened new paths. Kil Wi loved Go and soon forgot entirely why he had come to the forest.

“Here,” he thought. “We must put the white stone here!”

Unable to restrain himself, the woodcutter reached out to the board.

One of the players gently grabbed his wrist and shook his head.

“Forgive me,” Kil Wi said, embarrassed. “I got carried away.”

Then the other player took out a small seed, similar to a persimmon seed, and placed it in Kil Wi’s palm.

“Keep this in your mouth while you watch,” the player said quietly. “You will feel neither hunger nor thirst. But do not interfere with the game.”

Kil Wi tucked the seed inside his cheek.

And the game continued.

Hour after hour passed—or so the woodcutter thought. The sun did not grow hot, evening never came, and his stomach gave no reminder of supper. He watched the board, thinking only of the next move.

Sometimes he really wanted to give a hint to one of the players. He opened his mouth, but the strange grain seemed to remind him: be quiet and watch.

Kil Wi rested his chin on the strong wooden handle of his axe.

A black stone was placed near the board’s edge.

The white one answered.

Another black one.

Another white one.

Kil Wi no longer knew how long the game had been going on. It seemed to him that there was only the board, the stones, and the soft rustling of the pine trees around him.

And then there was a sudden crunch.

The axe handle crumbled to dust under his chin.

With his support gone, Kil Wi pitched forward and accidentally caught the edge of the board.

Black and white stones scattered across the clearing.

“Oh! Excuse me!” he exclaimed.

But there was no one to answer.

The players had disappeared.

The board had also disappeared.

Not a single stone remained on the grass. Only two flat boulders were still warm, as if someone had just sat on them.

Kil Wi looked around.

“How strange…”

He reached for his axe and found its iron head half buried in the earth, thick with rust.

“But I came here this morning!”

He touched his face and froze.

There was a long white beard on his chin.

Kil Wi held his hands before his eyes. They were wrinkled. His clothes hung in tatters, his hat had almost rotted away, and his gray hair reached his shoulders.

He spat out the magical seed.

And only then did he hear his own voice:

“How long have I been sitting here?”

Going down was harder than in the morning. His legs had grown weak, his back bent. Kil Wi found a long dry branch and made a staff out of it.

But what surprised him most was not his own old age, but the mountain.

The paths had changed. Where old trees had grown, there were now young ones. Some of the stones had crumbled, the streams had made new channels.

Finally he saw the valley.

“There is my village,” Kil Wi whispered in relief.

But after a few steps he stopped.

But the village had changed.

Different houses stood where the familiar cottages had been. Tall poles carrying wires crossed the valley. The road was wider, and people wore strange clothes.

And the strangest thing: no one recognized Kil Wi.

He walked down the street, looking for his home.

Old Pak’s shop should have been here. It was gone.

The great chestnut where the children played in summer had stood here. It was gone too.

And here… here stood his house.

In its place was a completely different yard.

Kil Wi felt his heart clench.

He stopped a dignified-looking man and bowed.

“Kind sir, please help an old man. I am looking for the family of a woodcutter named Kil Wi. His wife came from the Kim family. Their home should be here.”

The man looked at him in surprise.

“Kil Wi? I heard that name in an old family story. They say that many generations ago a woodcutter lived here who one day went into the mountains and never returned.”

“Many… generations?” asked Kil Wi.

“Yes. Hundreds of years have passed since then.”

The woodcutter leaned on his staff with both hands.

For a moment, he felt as though the ground beneath him had become as insubstantial as a cloud.

“And his wife? Children?”

The man answered softly:

“They lived out their lives long ago. But their descendants still live here.”

He led Kil Wi to an old cemetery on a hill. There, among the pine trees, lay stones with the names of several generations of one family.

Kil Wi slowly read the inscriptions.

There was his wife’s name.

There was his son’s.

Then the names of his children’s children.

And then came the names of people he had never seen, but who were part of his family.

He sat down on the grass.

At first he felt very sad.

Only that morning, it seemed, his wife had called from the doorway, telling him not to be late for fish soup. The children had been playing beside the ox. A whole ordinary day had lain ahead.

And now that day lay hundreds of years behind.

But after a while, Kil Wi heard children's laughter down in the village. He saw smoke from the kitchens. Someone was returning from the field, someone was carrying a basket, someone was hurrying home.

Life did not stop.

It simply went on.

“So you all lived your lives,” Kil Wi said softly, touching the stone bearing his wife’s name. “You loved, grew, quarreled, made peace, and had children. From our little home came a long thread of lives.”

He felt calmer.

By evening, the kind man had brought him food and water, though Kil Wi hardly touched them.

“Thank you,” he said. “I’ve spent so much time in the mountains that I want to sit here for a while now.”

The sun had disappeared behind the ridge.

Kil Wi leaned against the old pine, laid his staff beside him, and closed his eyes.

He dreamed that he was young again.

The ox was waiting at the gate.

The children were calling to him from the yard.

His wife was stirring the soup and pretending to be angry:

“I told you to come back for dinner!”

And Kil Wi laughed:

“I was delayed a little.”

In the morning, the people came to the hill. The old woodcutter was gone. Only his staff lay by the pine tree.

Overnight, flowers had grown around it—flowers never before seen in the valley. They bloomed only high in the mountains, where mist touches stone and, people say, the soft tapping of black and white stones on a board can sometimes be heard.

Since then, the elders have told the children the story of Kil Wi and reminded them:

“Time follows its own paths in the mountains. If you see two mountain fairies playing a game, greet them politely. You may watch, but do not hurry to suggest a move.”

For a single game may be only a game to a fairy, but a whole century to a person.

May this story leave a little light in your heart ✨