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Overview
Sim Chung, daughter of Sim Hyun and his unnamed wife, grows up caring for her father after her mother’s death and his loss of sight. A priest demands three hundred bags of rice in return for a predicted cure. She obtains the offering by agreeing to be sacrificed to the spirit obstructing a merchant fleet. When she leaps into the sea, the waters become calm; she regains consciousness in a fish-drawn boat attended by maidens and is taken to the Sea King. Her uncertainty about whether this is death is part of the telling, rather than an explicit statement that she drowned and was resurrected.
The Sea King reveals that she was once a star and cup-bearer to the King of Heaven. Allowing her star lover to consume the king’s special wines led to their banishment, at different times, and in this life that former lover became her father. Heaven now rewards her filial conduct. This unusual prior-life explanation belongs to Allen’s particular literary witness; it is not generalized to every version of the narrative or presented as a historical family.
She returns to the surface concealed inside a fragrant flower, whose perfume and juice sustain her, and the merchant presents it to the terrestrial king. He discovers her outside it at night; when she tries to retreat, the flower vanishes. She declares herself human and becomes queen. A feast for blind men finally reunites her with Sim Hyun, whose sight returns in the recognition scene. The flower is a shelter and vehicle, not a stated transformation of her body into a plant.
Origins & earliest records
Korea; accounts presented by Allen
Records & interpretation
Complete Sim Chung narrative and collection preface directly read.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Korean Tales
VIII, Sim Chung, pp. 152–169
Family, evolution & connections
Sim Chung’s earthly parents — Allen’s telling
The opening married household and daughter, pp. 152–156.
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- Sim Hyun and his unnamed wife — earthly parents
Marriage, birth and repeated daughter/father wording. This represents earthly parentage only. The Sea King later describes Sim Hyun as her former star-lover; that past-life relation is not another biological edge. Mother is unnamed, and the later earthly king is not her father. Other Sim Cheong versions are not merged.
Sim Hyun in Allen’s Sim Chung
Sim Hyun fathers Sim Chung in the opening household. The Sea King later identifies him as her former star-lover in an earlier existence; that prior-life role is distinct from present parentage.
Unnamed mother in Allen’s Sim Chung
Sim Hyun’s wife gives birth to the daughter and dies while she is young. The mother is unnamed; the celestial explanation does not replace this earthly mother–daughter relationship.
Primary records and illustrations
H. N. Allen, Korean Tales (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1889)
VIII, Sim Chung. VIII, Sim Chung, pp. 152–169
Entire chapter and preface read; brief notice kept proportionate. Narrator’s uncertainty and limits preserved. No individual teller or original Korean edition identified by the passage.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Historical English translation and narrative noticesAllen, Korean Tales (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1889), VIIIResearch access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
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