Haesindang

Quick facts

Address

Gallam-ri, Wondeok-eup, Samcheok-si, Gangwon

About this place

Haesindang stands at Sinnam in Gallam 2-ri, Wondeok-eup, Samcheok. Long ago a young woman and a young man who loved each other lived here. One day she took his boat out to a rock thick with seaweed to gather it, and while he had gone back a squall rose suddenly and she was swept off by the waves and drowned. The villagers called the rock Aebawi, the rock where she died struggling to live. After this the sea failed the village: no fish were caught, and boats that went out to work capsized, with lives lost again and again. The dead woman appeared in an old man’s dream and asked that her grievance be settled, since she had died unmarried and it was a bitter thing. To console her spirit the people built a shrine and held a rite, and to settle her grievance they offered phalluses carved from wood. The village rite at Sinnam is held at the first full moon of the year and on the first horse day of the tenth month.

Origin and history

Long ago a young woman and a young man who loved each other lived here. One day she took his boat out to a rock thick with seaweed to gather it, and while he had gone back a squall rose suddenly and she was swept off by the waves and drowned. The villagers called the rock Aebawi, the rock where she died struggling to live.

After this the sea failed the village. No fish were caught, and boats that went out to work capsized, with lives lost again and again.

The dead woman appeared in an old man’s dream and asked that her grievance be settled, since she had died unmarried and it was a bitter thing. To console her spirit the people built a shrine and held a rite, and to settle her grievance they offered phalluses carved from wood.

The village rite at Sinnam is held at the first full moon of the year and on the first horse day of the tenth month. The reason the rite falls on a horse day is that her spirit was held to be strong, so the strongest day, the horse day, was chosen for it.

What it is locally associated with

• Origin

  Aebawi

  The villagers called the rock Aebawi, the rock where she died struggling to live.

  folk tradition

• Power spotProtection & Safety

  After the fish stopped coming

  When no fish were caught and boats capsized after her death, the village built a shrine and held a rite.

  folk tradition

• What people do here

  The strongest day

  The rite falls on the first horse day of the tenth month because her spirit was held to be strong, so the strongest day was chosen.

  folk tradition

This shrine was raised as an answer to one person’s death. A young woman went to gather seaweed, was drowned in a squall, and afterwards the fish did not come and the boats went over. She appeared in an old man’s dream asking that her grievance be settled, and the village built a shrine and made an offering. What came first was not a measure for safety at sea but a measure for a dead person’s bitterness.

The offering made was phalluses carved from wood. The record states that this was the form the answer took to her saying she had died unmarried. Such carvings still hang at the shrine.

The date of the rite carries a judgement too. It falls on the first horse day of the tenth month because her spirit was held to be strong, and the strongest day was chosen to match. How much force the dead woman was credited with settled a date on the calendar.

The rock was named as well: Aebawi, the rock where she died struggling to live. This site holds other places whose names keep hold of something gone; here it is a person’s last moments that became a place name.

Related guides

• Musok and gut — Korea’s living folk religionWho the mudang are and what a gut is. And what to do if you walk in on one.

Sources

1. 해신당(海神堂) — 한국민족문화대백과사전 (accessed 2026-08-16)