No. 002
Imugi
이무기 (imugi)
A great serpent that lives in deep water because it has not yet become a dragon. It was believed that after long years in the water it would rise to heaven as a dragon, but if a person sees it at the moment of ascent it falls back. It appears both as a sacred being that brings rain and as a spiteful one that does harm.
Names
- Korean
- 이무기
- Hanja
- No hanja attested in a source
- Revised Romanization
- imugi
- McCune-Reischauer
- imugi
- English
- Imugi
Appearance
A huge serpent resembling a dragon. On the carved capstones of stelae it is shown as a dragon without horns.
Habitat
Deep water such as ponds and pools.
Abilities
- Can make rain fall.
- Can take the form of a dragon.
Weaknesses
- If a person sees it at the moment of ascent, it fails to become a dragon and returns to the water.
Other names
- 이시미 - Name used in the folktale 'The Wild Ginseng and the Isimi'. (Source: Encyclopedia of Korean Culture)
- 이목 - 璃目 in Samguk Yusa; reading it as imugi is the interpretation of the Dictionary of Korean Folk Symbols. (Source: Encyclopedia of Korean Folklore and Traditional Culture)
- lesser dragon - Descriptive English gloss.
Related creatures
- Becomes Dragon - Becomes a dragon when it completes its time and ascends.
Attestations
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Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms Classical text
Original璃目常在寺側小潭。陰隲法化。忽一年元旱。田蔬焦槁。壤敕璃目行雨。一境告足。
Translation (Korean)이목은 늘 절 옆 작은 못에 살며 불법의 교화를 남몰래 도왔다. 어느 해 큰 가뭄이 들자 보양이 이목에게 비를 내리게 하니 고을 전체가 넉넉해졌다.
Translation (English)Imok always lived in the small pond beside the temple and quietly aided the Dharma. When a great drought came one year, Boyang ordered Imok to bring rain, and the whole district had enough.
What it says: The dragon of the West Sea sends his son 璃目 (Imok) with the monk Boyang; Imok lives in a pond by the temple, brings rain and hides from heaven's punishment. Identifying Imok with the imugi is the reading of the Dictionary of Korean Folk Symbols; the word imugi is not in the original.
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Encyclopedia of Korean Folklore and Traditional Culture Encyclopedia
What it says: The imugi article: definition as a great water serpent, the failed-ascent tales, the proverb about the imugi that never became a dragon, and the reading of Samguk Yusa's 璃目 as imugi.
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Encyclopedia of Korean Culture Encyclopedia
What it says: Article on an oral tale type in which an isimi (imugi) appears.
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Encyclopedia of Korean Culture Encyclopedia
What it says: Explains the stele capstone 이수 (螭首) as a cover stone carved with imugi, describing the imugi as dragon-shaped but hornless, and notes that in China this motif settled on the character 螭.
Interpretation and notes
One view holds that the imugi may have been a native water deity before dragon belief arrived with Buddhism, and was later demoted to the dragon's son or a failed dragon.
No hanja spelling of the word imugi itself has been found. The encyclopedia glosses the Chinese 螭 (a hornless dragon) as imugi, but that is a translation equivalent, not a hanja spelling of the native word; the field is left empty.