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Overview
Old Timber Top is a greedy lumber dealer whose ambitions at court consume his fortune. While lodging at an inn, he is changed into a bull by four sticks supplied by fairies: horns and thick lips appear, a tail grows, and the sticks become legs. He retains his human memory while being sold as livestock. Eating turnips reverses the change.
He steals the sticks and uses them to make his wealthy relative partly bovine, then presents ordinary turnip preparation as a rare cure. Restoring the man earns him a physician’s reputation and prosperity. The narrative attributes the sticks’ and turnips’ effects to fairies, while other characters mistakenly blame household or mountain spirits. His name is a joke about supposed stupidity, not proof of a literally wooden skull.
The tale’s caricatures of ritual specialists, medical practitioners and Korean society belong to Griffis’s literary voice. Its transformation and cure are not medical claims, and the story does not establish that traditional practitioners generally behaved like these characters.
The ending makes him physician to the king. His renewed prosperity supports his family, his sons and daughters marry well, and he has seventeen grandchildren before he dies. This successful career, obtained through a deception of his own, complicates the fairies’ earlier stated intention to reform him; they nevertheless claim responsibility for the effects of both the sticks and the turnips.
Origins & earliest records
Korean tale in an English literary retelling
Records & interpretation
Full relevant tale and collection preface directly read.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Korean Fairy Tales
Old Timber Top, pp. 130–146
Family & connections
A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.
Primary records and illustrations
William Elliot Griffis, Korean Fairy Tales (1922 edition)
English literary collection. Old Timber Top, pp. 130–146
Whole chapter and preface read; no named original-language narrator. Figurative comparisons distinguished from literal anatomy, and cultural/geographical assertions not independently adopted. Whole chapterXVIII read. Literal animal transformations distinguished from wooden-head insults; anonymous fairy agency distinguished from bystanders’ Tokgabi/possession explanations. Turnip cure confined to narrative magic; historical prejudice not endorsed. Complete chapter reread confirms closing royal medical appointment, supported family and seventeen grandchildren; original duplicate records archived before consolidation.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Historical tale collectionGriffis, Korean Fairy Tales, Old Timber Top, pp. 130–146Research access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
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