A village community usually has its own tales of origin and sacred objects related with its surrounding nature, culture, and history, just as the people of a country has their own myth of origin. The myths of a village community are likely to represent the spiritual essence of the village people and their epistemological pattern toward their micro universe, the village they live in.
Many tales found in A Collection of Korean Oral Literature(『한국구비문학 대계』), which have been collected throughout the country, deal with the questions of village origins and sacred objects. The questions posed in the tales are: (1) What is the origin of the village? (2) How the surrounding nature was created? (3) How the farm land was created? The answers most commonly found in the stories are: (1) A village was originated from a mountain peak which remained after a deluge or a ship which had been floating during a flood. (2) The surrounding nature was created when it was carried to the vicinity during flood. Or it was created by the deity Mago, a grandmother like figure. (3) The farm land was made by a dragon ascending to heaven. In addition to these motifs, the tales show that the people of a village have common memories of the village founder or the guardian deity. They also have a common interest in making the sacred objects in the village.
This study provides some foundations to start discussing village mythology by providing a basis in such elements as the symbols of flood or ship, the concepts of diety Mago, the Dragon diety, and other guardian dieties, and some signs of sacred places within a village.