The Rabbit’s Liver

Story at a Glance

In this Bito Island origin legend, a terrapin lures a rabbit from Wolteungdo to the Dragon King’s palace. The rabbit claims his liver is on a tree back home, but his jump toward the island ends in the sea; the teller links the rabbit’s, terrapin’s, and pregnant mate’s deaths to nearby island names.

The Folktale — Faithfully Retold

On Wolteungdo, a rabbit and his pregnant mate play by the shore. A terrapin rises from the sea and promises the rabbit riches, a high post, and a more beautiful wife if he will visit the Dragon King’s underwater palace. The rabbit leaves his mate and rides on the terrapin’s back.

The palace is not the splendid place the rabbit imagined. The Dragon King is near death and admits that the terrapin brought him there to provide a liver. The rabbit quickly says that rabbits remove their livers for the first half of each month and hang them on a cinnamon tree on land to strengthen them in the sun and sea breeze. By chance, he claims, his liver is there now.

The Dragon King sends the terrapin to carry the rabbit back to Wolteungdo and fetch the liver. When the full moon makes the island look close, the rabbit leaps toward it, mistaking its reflection for land, and falls into the sea. The teller says he drowns; that place becomes Rabbit Island. The terrapin fears returning to the Dragon King without the rabbit and takes his own life; that place becomes Turtle Island. The rabbit’s pregnant mate stretches her neck in grief and dies at Mokseom.

The teller connects this sad ending to the nearby islands and names in the Bito Island landscape. It is a local tragic telling, not the familiar version in which the rabbit escapes alive.

Korean Context in This Story

This recording embeds the rabbit-and-turtle episode in a local place-origin legend. It preserves a fatal outcome for all three animals instead of the familiar escape ending. The many Tokkijeon texts and Sugungga performances have different episodes and conclusions; this page does not combine them.

Versions and Sources

Selected recording: Korean Oral Literature Compendium, “Bito Island Legend,” POKS.GUBI.GUBI.2_21496, told by Jo Maeng-ji in Sacheon on 5 March 2013. The oral transcript explicitly links the deaths of the rabbit, terrapin, and pregnant mate to Rabbit Island, Turtle Island, and Mokseom. Comparison: Academy of Korean Studies, “Tokkijeon” surveys the broader literary and pansori traditions; their survival and terrapin endings must not be substituted for this local record.