심의린의 「개구리 신선(神仙)」연구 = A Study of 「The Frog God of Heaven」by Shim Euirin

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

「The Frog God of Heaven」is included in 『The Great Collection of Chosun Fairy Tales』(1926) by Shim Euirin, which is the first Korean collection of fairy tales. Even though Shim`s 「The Frog God of Heaven」 and Grimm Brothers` 「The Frog Prince」 have quite different ending parts and an opposite message of moral lessons, the existing researchers have claimed that 「The Frog God of Heaven」 is just an adapted fairy tale of 「The Frog Prince」 from 『Grimms` Fairy Tales』 due to the fact that the two tales are sharing several similar story elements. I have quite strong questions over their claims, which led to this research. In this study, I compared 「The Frog God of Heaven」 with 「The Frog Prince」 and then with our folk tale, 「The Toad Bridegroom」 and analyzed the similarities and differences among them, which showed that the existing arguments that 「The Frog God of Heaven」 is just an adapted fairy tale of 「The Frog Prince」 is not well founded. Furthermore, I could find several similar story elements between 「The Frog God of Heaven」 and 「The Toad Bridegroom」. The two tales have both important elements of God`s transformation into `frog` or `toad` and their marriage between human and God, common in our folk tales. Among the similar elements of the two tales, we also need to note that both of the frog and toad are gods, not animals or humans, and the frog in 「The Frog God of Heaven」 turned into God for himself, not by the help of other people like the princess in 「The Frog Prince」, and also the frog and the toad ascended to heaven. Therefore, it would also be quite meaningful to research other similar tales from 『The Great Collection of Chosun Fairy Tales』by Shim, comparing them with ones from 『Grimms` Fairy Tales』and our other traditional fairy tales for the purpose of finding the proof to support the relativeness among them.