¹In the winter of 1908, Gim Ja-hyeon’s two-year-old daughter Pil-sun suffered from smallpox, and a night came when she constantly scratched her body and wailed as if she might die. And so, the family tied the child’s hands and hung a flag outside the room, but the child showed no sign of improvement.

²Ja-hyeon came before Sangjenim and informed him, “My daughter is suffering from smallpox. She seems near death, for she cries constantly and will not eat.”

³“Let us go and attend to this,” Sangjenim replied. Upon arriving at Ja-hyeon’s home, Sangjenim immediately snapped the flagpole in half and cast it out into the yard.⁴Sangjenim thundered, “Why do you seek a foothold in the land of Joseon! Begone to the West this instant!” He then pounded the raised wooden floor with a stick.

⁵Aghast, Pil-sun’s mother and the whole family trembled in fear, mouths agape, and moaned, “Oh no! What will happen now that the spirit has been treated so rudely?”

⁶Sangjenim demanded of Pil-sun, “Why are you crying?” and slapped the child on the cheek. He then commanded, “Someone fetch me a gourd of water.” When the water was brought, he poured it on Pil-sun, and the child ceased her wailing.⁷Immediately, all the scabs on her body fell away and the smallpox was cured. Aside from slight pockmarks on her nose, her body was whole and bore no trace of the disease.

⁸After expelling the smallpox spirit that was afflicting Pil-sun, Sangjenim declared, “From this day forth, I assume direct command of the spirits of smallpox.⁹I now dispatch all the spirits of smallpox to the West.”¹⁰From that time onward, none of the children in Guritgol Village ever suffered from smallpox, and smallpox gradually disappeared from Joseon.

¹¹As Sangjenim departed Ja-hyeon’s house, he further declared, “When smallpox erupts in the days to come, know that my world has arrived.”