A Comparative Study of Goguryeo's <Jumong> Epic and Yakut's <Er Sogotoch> Epic
Authors:   The Society Of Korean Oral Literature, Lee Jae Jung 
Published: February 2024

The Korean people and the Yakut people have many cultural commonalities, including shamanism, the idea of a heavenly god, sun worship, archery culture, and the belief in the crow as the messenger of God. These commonalities are also fused in the myths or epics of the heroes (national founders or founding founders) of the two peoples. In the founding or national origin myth (or epic), which explains how the progenitor of a nation or tribe (or nation) was born and formed a nation or tribe, the nation's worldview is strongly expressed, and along with it, historicity and literary value can be discovered.
In this paper, through a study of Goguryeo's <Jumong> epic and the Yakut people's <Er Sogotokh> epic, we examine not only the worldviews of the two peoples, but also similarities and differences between the two myths by comparing and analyzing what elements are used to express the divinity of the hero, what thoughts they have about the origins of their peoples, and how the heroic feats of the protagonist are reproduced. Based on this, I think we can understand the characteristics of the nation.
The two stories indicate a high degree of similarity in structure, with the following structure: birth-growth-deficiency-departure-trials, overcoming -arrival-fight, and victory-achievement-after-story. And the two heroes are similar in that they are both descendants of heavenly gods, have mysterious anecdotes related to their birth, and possess extraordinary archery skills. However, while the <Er Sogotoch> epic has a story structure that focuses on the protagonist defeating the antagonist, getting married, and starting a family; the <Jumong> epic focuses on the protagonist defeating the antagonist and securing territory to establish a nation. This seems to be due to the difference between the folk tale about the founder of a nation and the founder of a country. In addition, the Yakutian worldview is well illustrated in <Er Sogotoch>, where the protagonist and antagonist freely move between the heavenly world, the middle (terrestrial) world, and the lower world. It shows that these worlds are not disconnected and independent from each other, but are organically connected, and thus a complete world is formed. In contrast, <Jumong> shows communication with the gods by asking for help from heavenly gods and gods of river, but the connection between humans and gods is weakened in that the protagonist cannot move to the world of the gods. In addition, <Er Sogotoch> shows that the role of a sacred tree that tells the secret of birth, the water of life gifted by the sacred tree, and a horse with mysterious abilities appear as important elements in composing the story, indicating that the mythical concept is more strongly reflected than <Jumong>.
This denotes that the epic <Er Sogotoch> was formed earlier than the epic <Jumong>. It is impossible to reveal the internalized unconscious form and culture of the two peoples through comparative analysis of only two hero narratives and has clear limitations. In the future, we hope that these limitations will be overcome through more extensive research of the heroic epics, legends, and myths of northern peoples.