Korean Tiger (Horangi)
The Korean tiger (horangi) is the peninsula's most storied animal, feared as a man-eater yet respected as the mountain god's messenger and a guardian spirit. In the tiger-tale cycle recorded since at least the 13th century, it is intelligent and shape-shifting — a filial, noble 'brother' in one tale and a disguised predator in the next. Wild Siberian tigers once roamed the peninsula, and though extinct there now, the tiger endures as Korea's national animal.