• Acta Via Serica
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.57-86
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• 2020

This article is an analysis of the tale Munhŭi who bought a dream which has been reported, with few variants, both in Samguk sagi and Samguk yusa. As the tale narrates a very particular and old dream, in which a urine flood forecasts kingship and royalty, it has not been investigated here on the basis of a modern psycho-analytical approach, but within eastern and western ancient cultural patterns regarding humans' consideration for excreta and criteria of dreams interpretation. The research led the author to propose for Munhŭi's dream an archaic (and today lost) archetype of interpretation, whose origin is perhaps to be found in the Ancient Middle-East.