Ungnyeo
Ungnyeo ('Bear Woman') is the bear who became a woman in Korea's foundation myth, recorded at the opening of the Samguk Yusa, the chronicle compiled by the monk Iryeon around 1281. When a tiger and a bear prayed to the heavenly prince Hwanung to be made human, he gave them garlic and mugwort and ordered them to stay out of sunlight for a hundred days; the tiger gave up, but the bear endured and was transformed on the twenty-first day. As a woman she prayed beneath the sacred tan tree for a child, and her union with Hwanung produced Dangun Wanggeom, the legendary founder of Gojoseon.