There has been a growing demand for comparative studies on the folk tale from Mongolia and Korea since both countries have similarities from linguistic, racial, folk, historic perspectives. In this sense this comparative study on folk tales was initiated. In order to carry out this study, it is vital to access original texts and fortunately we could acquire a series of translation works of Mongolian folk tales. The extant six volumes of folk tale collections may help to understand the characteristics of the Mongolian folk tales.
Features of the Mongolian folk tales are as follows: it mainly consists of fables and magical stories which have common motif, 'journey to the under world'.
Other distinctive features in structure and content can be summarized below:
Firstly, frequent uses of fixed phrases in a verse form. In particular fixed phrases in a form of verse are easily found in the beginning part and by mixing verse lines in the middle it gives an epical effect to readers.; Secondly, frequent uses of idiomatic phrases.; various linguistic expressions. This feature can not be interpreted before fully understanding Mongolian culture.; frequent uses of indirect narration. In other words, the folk tale speaker delivers words of a third person.; Finally, frequent uses of specific numbers: 3, 9, and 81.
The founding myth has been a good research source in comparing folk tales in both countries since they have closely similar motifs. One of the most commonly found motif is that there are a number of Buddhist deities who fight each other to occupy the human world and the final winner would control the human world. In this sense it is easy to conclude the features were caused by the introduction of Buddhism but there is still a significant space for further research through comparative studies on the folk tale and its depicting worlds.
When it comes to comparing individual versions of folk tales, there are a number of folk tales which have drawn much attention. It is because the versions are similar stories and developed in the same way which is based on a specific motif. For instance, a mythical tale, 「legend of Bear ferry 」, would be comparable in a more expanded category of 'Bear myth', 「a story of one boy's wishing luck 」would be compared 「tale of a journey for seeking fortune 」 telling that a poor person's successful 'fortune-seeking journey.' When we collect folk tales from the two countries which are able to compare each other, we will found a long list of comparable cases. It means there are a number of comparable folk tales in the two countries. The atmosphere of comparative studies in literature between Mongolia and Korea which sees raising cultural awareness toward Mongolian culture and good relationship between two countries, has made a cornerstone to access Mongolian folk tales. If this academic trend proceeds, different discourse and perspectives can unveil similarities and differences between the two cultures. In doing so, this pioneer study on folk tales from Mongolia and Korea can be expanded to the whole area of Northeast Asia and at the same time it will provide ways of understanding of cultural heritage of Northeast Asia in a systematic way.