November 21, 2021

This Korean folk tale narrates the origin of the common cold (gamgi, or gobbul), which is believed to be caused by the ghost of a man with two genitals, who died after a futile search for a wife and fulfilled his lust in death by releasing himself in people’s nostrils.

There lived a prince with two genitals, and when it came time for him to marry the king ordered his subjects to find a maiden with two genitals. But they were not able to find such a maiden, and in the end the prince died. When he turned into a ghost, he sought relief for his unfulfilled desires by releasing himself in people’s nostrils, which in people manifests as symptoms of sinus congestion in the early stages of a cold and progresses into a runny nose.

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