A pine tree that has protected Pahoe for a millennium

 

In front of Pahoe, a large rock houses an old pine tree on its peak. People have been calling this rock Cheonsongam

 

for as long as anyone can remember. There is an old story in Cheonsongam, in which pine trees and rocks live

 

together as if in one body for many years. A pine tree that changed the fate of the Pahoe During the Silla period,

 

Buddhist monk Ilji came to see Pahoe. The sight of the still water churning into a torrent and bending

 

around beautifully was spectacular, so. Monk Ilji closed his eyes and  meditated for a moment. Monk Ilji

 

was able to see things from the distant past when he was deep in meditation, and at some  point, he could

 

even view events from the future. When he closed his eyes, he could see a thousand-year-old white snake

 

threading through the clear water. The white snake trained and over and over again in the water, and finally.

 

by reaching Nirvana, he had the opportunity to live as a dragon in the sky. However, if you devoted yourself

 

to training but didn’t cleary our mind, even if you lived 10,000 years, a snake would only remain as a snake.

 

Even though the snake’s scales were battered and torn, it continued  to move and glide along the water.

 

He tried to let go of his greed and keep hold of his pure heart that heaven had given him. Then one day,

 

there was deafening thunder and lightning accompanied by in the heavy rain. The heavy rain turned into a vortex

 

and became a column of water connecting the waves with the sky. The white serpent, which had been training

 

for a long time, suddenly turned into a white dragonand flew into the sky by way of the water column.

 

Monk Ilji opened his eyes and said,

 

“As the rumor goes, this must be a blessed place where snakes crawling under the ground, trained for many years, turned into dragons, and flew up into the sky.”

 

Monk Ilji read a poem of blessing to the place and tried to turn back. It was just then that. Monk Ilji

 

collapsed with a frustrated face. He saw the water of the Pahoe turning dark green. On top of it, a number

 

of aquatic animals that lived only in clear water were seen floating on the dark green water.

 

“It’s poison. Terrible poison spreads in this water.”

 

Monk Ilji was uncomfortable contemplating the future he envisioned. He wanted to prevent

 

such a beautiful place from turning into a pond of death. Moreover, Pahoe was a place

 

where a snake had trained and flew up into the heavens as a dragon.  If people also devoted themselves

 

to the stream of Pahoe, it would help them realize the will of the Buddha.

 

“I must find a way to protect this place somehow.”

 

Monk Ilji traveled around, thinking about what the method would be.

 

“Yes, if only I could change the view of this landscape a little!”

 

However, he couldn’t come up with a good way to change the appearance of Pahoe. Monk Ilji

 

decided to leave Muju after seeing the Pahoe and decided chose to stay overnight and think

 

about how. Monk Ilji settled on staying overnight at a pavilion called Pahoejeong, which was built

 

on a strange rock across the stream. Monk Ilji, who while praying to the Buddha, fell asleep and ended up

 

tossing and turning all night. until someone woke him up. He was upright-faced and, had long hair.

 

Monk Ilji was surprised because he thought he was suddenly face to face with a mugger late at night.

 

“Oh, you look surprised, monk. I, too, am just a traveler.”

 

His body smelled strongly, but strangely, it wasn’t a very unpleasant smell. Rather, it was subtle and fragrant.

 

The monk seemed to have smelled it somewhere before, but he couldn’t remember it well.

 

“Then, you are also a tourist who has come to see the scenery of this place.”

 

He laughed. “I’m not a tourist, I’m here to work.”

 

“Really?, What do you do here?”

 

“Someone wrote to me, asking me to be a gatekeeper.”

 

“Oh, that’s a relief. You’re the one who’ll protect Pahoe.”

 

The long hair man scratched his head.

 

“I was supposed to meet you over there, but the person who gave me with the job was lost, so I didn’t show up at the appointed place. So, I’m going to wait untildawn today and go.”

 

The long-haired man pointed at a large rock by the road. Monk Ilji turned his head and looked

 

at the rock. At that moment, Monk Ilji woke up from a dream. It had been such a vivid dream.

 

Before he knew it, dawn was breaking. Monk Ilji, coming down from the hermitage, rushed toward

 

the place pointed to by the long-haired man in his dream. The rock he had seen in his dream  was really

 

there. However, once at the rock, Monk Ilji tilted his head to organize his thoughts and took a walk

 

in the forest around Pahoe. Somewhere, he could still smell the fragrance of long-haired man.

 

Monk Ilji hurried toward the smell. It was turned out to be a large pine tree.  However, it was not

 

possible to pull out the pine tree and move it to the side of the rock. Monk Ilji, who was agonizing over this,

 

broke off a pine tree branch and came to the rock holding it in his arms. And he put it in a deep

 

crack in the rock. It was unlikely that trees could grow on rocks with no soil at all, but if these pine

 

branches took root, maybe Pahoe would be safe. Monk Ilji left the fate of this place to a small pine branch

 

and left. After that, pine trees began to grow miraculously on rocks. When the pine tree  grew large enough

 

to shade Pahoe, a large poisonous snake came up to the Pahoe. A serpent came to train himself to fly to heaven

 

in a snake-shaped wave. However, because of the pine trees growing on the rocks, the serpent, who thought

 

it was not a Pahoe, went on his way to search again. If the viper had stayed in the Pahoe while training,

 

the Pahoe would have turned into a pond of death where nothing could be done because of the poison

 

possessed by the viper. Since then, pine trees have remained in place  for a thousand years by bending

 

with the Pahoe. Some time later, people began to call pine trees and the rocks under them  Cheonnyeonsong

 

and Cheonnyeonam, which means that they have been growing for a thousand years. And when the night

 

grows long, the pine tree on the rock looks like a long-haired man.