himself as hunting declined. It may also be a fusion of two originally independent narratives: an indigenous myth about the skull-god, and a narrative imported from the mainland about Saman escaping the chasa. Similarly, the Jangja-puri bears a close relationship to the Korean folktale of the ( ). In this story, a miserly rich man (jangja) abuses and chases away a Buddhist monk asking for alms. When his daughter-in-law secretly visits the monk to give him alms, he tells her to flee the house the next day and to not look back. The daughter-in-law flees but does look back, discovers that the rich man's house has become a pond, and turns into stone. The Jangja-puri similarly features the miserly Sama-jangja and his good-hearted daughter-in-law. Some versions even involve a Buddhist monk asking for alms and Sama-jangja abusing him. As in the folktale, the daughter-in-law visits the monk, and he tells her to flee because the house will be turned into a pond. The difference is that the daughter-in-law of the Jangja-puri insists on staying, and that the monk's prophecy never comes to pass. In most versions, she alone accurately interprets Sama-jangja's ensuing dream. She often makes the arrangements for the gut ritual for the chasa, directly saving her father-in-law's life. In many versions, when the chasa's attempt to replace Sama-jangja with Uma-jangja fails, it is the daughter-in-law who tells them to try taking the horse instead. In one version, she officiates the ssitgim-gut ritual for the horse as well. Unlike her equivalent in folklore, who dooms both her family and herself, the daughter-in-law of the myth is the savior of the household. The folktale thus acts as a literary foil highlighting the heroism of the daughter-in-law, who Jeong Je-ho considers a symbol of the shamans officiating the actual ssitgim-gut ritual and reciting the myth. The Korean Buddhist tale Wangnangbanhon-jeon, written some time before 1304, tells a similar story but with a strong Buddhist slant. One night, a man named Wang Sagwe is visited by the spirit of his dead wife, who explains that she died because her husband had rebuked a man for practicing nianfo, a Buddhist devotional practice, and that he will die for the same reason the next day. To avoid this, he must be practicing nianfo himself when the chasa arrive. The next day, the chasa find Wang deep in nianfo. They reluctantly take him to the