Long ago, this was when people
set out to ask about the year ahead.
Four hundred years ago, on a riverbank,
stood a little house dug into the earth.
Its owner always wore a strange hat.
A hat made of iron.
On the road, a hat.
When hungry, a pot.
He cooked rice in that hat
and shared it with the hungry he met.
is still told in Korea today.
Each First Moon, a long line formed outside.
For a bowl of rice. And for one question.
A guestHow will my year go?
He asked only three things.
Your age this year.
Your birth month.
Your birth day.
Three numbers, and out of 144 paths came
came the year that was theirs.
Every year he read aloud,
he wrote down, page after page.
A secret reading he showed almost no one.
Tojeong Bigyeol土 亭 秘 訣Tojeong, a pavilion of earth.
Bigyeol, the secret reading left inside.For centuries after, every First Moon,
homes across Korea read their year by it.
The day he left, he hung the iron hat over the hearth.
Then he took a handful of hearth clay
and shaped a child.
The old manKeep the fire going,
and feed whoever comes.
That child is Tori(土理).
To(土) for earth, Ri(理) for the way of things. Made of clay, to read the way of a year.
Four hundred years at that pot,
Tori opens the door every First Moon.
One age,
one birth month,
one birth day.
Hand them over, and Tori puts them in the pot and lights the fire.
When it’s done, twelve months go into twelve little bowls.
Good months served warm,
careful months served with care.
Last of all, a letter on the rice crust.
Pressed hard by Tori’s hand,
the words you need this year.
Tori still never closes the door.
No one knows when the old man will return.