1,500-Year-Old Love Story Between a Persian Prince and a Korean Princess that Could Rewrite History

Ancient Origins ^ | May 2018 | Mark Oliver

[CondoleezzaProtege]

More than a thousand years before the first European explorer reached Korea’s shores, the Persian Empire was writing love stories about Korean princesses.

Recently, historians took a second look an old Persian epic written around 500 AD and realized that, at the center of the tale, was the unusual story of a Persian prince marrying a Korean princess.

It’s an incredible discovery. Up until recently, we weren’t sure that the Persians of that time even knew Korea existed. This new revelation shows Persia didn’t just make contact with Korea – these countries were intimately connected.

The story is called the Kushnameh, and, in itself, it’s hardly a new discovery. It’s one of the most popular stories to come out of the Persian Empire, one that’s been told and retold countless times in the 1,500 years since it was written.

Korea comes into play when the story starts to focus on a young, noble prince of Persia named Abtin. For his whole life, Abtin has been forced to live in the woods, hiding from the evil Kus the Tusked. He has only one thing to keep him safe: a magic book that tells him his future. It’s almost like breaking the fourth wall – Abtin has a copy of the book we’re reading, and he’s not above flipping ahead a few pages to see how it all ends. In fact, that’s just what he does. He reads the next chapter and finds out that he’s supposed to go to the Silla kingdom of Korea, and – after briefly getting confused and going to China – he winds up being welcomed with open arms by the king of Silla.

From here, the story is just page after page of lavish descriptions of how beautiful Korea is...

[ThankYouFreeRepublic]

Those two were my favorite characters, especially the young woman who later sacrificed herself for him. I have to admit, I did not finish the last two episodes... because I did not want the story to end.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Mimics the plot of Turandot.

[ThanhPhero]

Silla was in the southeastern part of the peninsula.

[wardaddy]

No kidding and our resident spert has already killed one hopeful

Air miles from eastern edge of Persia to Seoul is 3400 air miles...statute

Add likely at least a third to that on trails and over very rough terrain

Sixth century

Doable but unlikely

[Antoninus]

I have to admit, I did not finish the last two episodes... because I did not want the story to end.

Watch them. They pull things together very nicely and are largely historically accurate as regards the fall of the Yuan Dynasty. The cool thing about some of these Korean historical dramas is that you can revisit them a year or two later and they still feel fresh. Amazingly well done.

[ThankYouFreeRepublic]

Thank you for writing. I will do so and keep your comments in mind, which will make the final viewing that much more enjoyable.

Thank God for Korean dramas. We don’t watch Western entertainment at all anymore because we prefer the morals, story telling and production values of Korean dramas much more than Hollywood or European films, which I regret watching, because of their insipidness and many times debauchery.

[dfwgator]

I too, pretty much have made KDramas my sole entertainment.

I loved “My Love From the Star”, and “Goblin”.

[ThankYouFreeRepublic]

Me too!