The Pardoner's Tale + Prologue

Nobles from the Chosun Dynasty

There was a King in Korea, in the Chosun Dynasty. The king was renowned for his intelligence and for his generosity. One day, a mysterious crime was reported to the king. The local prosecutor was brought forward in front of the king because he was not able to solve the case. He blamed himself for not having a clear solution to the crime scene and pleaded for mercy. The king, not enraged at all told him that he is forgiven and asked him to explain the case. The prosecutor described the crime scene.

"Your majesty, the crime scene was brutal to watch. Three men laid dead in a forest having a full bag of gold, food and poisoned-drink near them. One of them had been choked, and the other two seemed to have drank the poisoned-drink. Sir, I am afraid to report that I cannot find any solution to what might have happened in the forest."

Listening to the prosecutor, the king started to laugh softly and said, "I don't think it is a hard case at all. I think I can infer what could have happened in the forest."

The prosecutor begged the king for his opinion. The king went on to say,

"According to what you reported me, a man was choked and two other men were poisoned. They had a bag full of gold in front of them. From this I can assume they were robbers who stole the gold from someone. Then they decide to celebrate their fortune, so they send the youngest one to go grab some food and drink. When the guy leaves, two of them decide to kill the guy as soon as he comes back from the local shop so they could get more share of gold. Meanwhile, the man who was sent to buy the drink decides to take all the gold by killing the other two. So he buys some poison and puts them in the drink he bought. When he comes back, he is choked to death by the other two. The other two robbers, not knowing anything about the poison, celebrate their fortune, drink the poison and die. Don't you think this is what happened?"

The prosecutor, stunned with such a clear solution to the case, thanked the king and was able to close the case. Citizens of the Chosun Dynasty praised the king for his intelligence.

*****

I was very surprised with how The Pardoner's Tale resembles a very famous story in Korea. These two stories are almost exactly the same, and puts me into confusion--how could this happen? How can a story that had happened for real be written in a country half-lap around the earth from Korea? Although the motif of The Pardoner's Tale is "greed corrupts people," which is a different theme from the perspective of Korean story, it is cool that stories can overlap by a mere coincidence.