Il-wol-san page 3:  Yong-hwa-sa
Ritual-portrait of National Founder
Dan-gun, Korea's mythical first king.
The painting of Hwang-ssi-buin in her own
large, fancy shrine in Yong-hwa-sa [Dragon
Flower Temple], visible from the steep curves
of Highway 31 just south of the Bonghwa
County border.
LEFT:  a nice
painting of a
Shin-seon
[spiritual
immortal] with a
deer, from the
outer wall of the
San-shin-gak.
On the left, the superb modern San-shin taeng-hwa of Yong-hwa-sa in 1996.  The San-shin holds both a
gnarled staff and a crane-feather fan.  Three boy-attendants are shown: one fans the fire heating a teapot,
another (with flying scarf) holds the Peaches of Immortaity, and the last holds a staff with a gourd-bottle tied
onto it.  To the
right is a unique icon of three heavenly female spirits, similar to Sam-shin icons.  They are
resting on lotus flowers, a Buddhist motif granting them Bodhisattva or Arhant [
na-han] status.  They have
the robes and looped hairstyles of queens or princesses of the Joseon Dynasty.  Dragons cavort in clouds
above the two attendants.  The central goddess sits on a throne; she is
not Hwang-ssi-buin.  Probably, she
represents one of the daughters of the
Yong Wang [Dragon King of the Waters] (see pages 110-111 of the
first edition of my book).  His daughters, frequently found in Korean myths, get conflated with the 7 or 8
daughters of the Ok-hwang-sang-je (pgs 108-109) and the 7 or 8 daughters of the
Jiri-san Seong-mo Halmae
San-shin.