Of all the deities in traditional Korean mythology, Cheukshin is by far the most interesting. In my opinion, anyhow. Not only is she generally portrayed as naked, she also has long, disease ridden hair. And, even better still, she’s the mistress of Seongju, the god of the center beam. So, who exactly is the absolutely top-tier goddess and what does she do?

Well, first of all, she straddles the line between goddess and ghost or bad spirit. One reason for this might come from the fact that she has a lot of rather nasty behaviors and back in the day Koreans blamed her for a lot of their illnesses. It’s also important to recognize that a lot of Korean traditional beliefs don’t fit so cleanly into western language. So, it might be easier to think of her as a spirit, albeit a pretty dangerous one.

So what does she do? Well, according to Korean mythology, she’s a vain girly, which makes sense since she’s the one that’s in charge of the bathhouse. She tends to be naked, and she tends to be pretty, and generally gets depicted as youthful. Most importantly, if you tick her off, she will straight up give you diseases by wrapping her diseased hair around you.

There are several traditional Korean behaviors that are wrapped up in Cheukshin. First of all, it is believed that her hair is long enough that it drags on the ground, meaning that if you’re not careful, you might accidentally step on it, something that she obviously doesn’t like. For that reason, traditionally, Koreans either clear their throats or knock on the bathroom door before entering to ensure that she has time to get her hair out of the way. Anyone who surprises her, or steps on her hair risks dying of disease.

Cheukshin is also Seongju’s mistress, a fact that doesn’t go over that well with his actual wife, Jowang, the goddess of the hearth and kitchen. Traditionally, Korean homes had the bathroom outside, and folk lore suggests that one of the reasons for this is the bad relationship between Jowang and Cheukshin. Honestly, it’s probably not a bad choice to keep your bathroom far from your kitchen anyhow.

So, that’s Cheukshin. She’s a dangerous spirit that demands respect, and will straight up kill you with diseases if you don’t give it to her.

This information an amalgamation of all the different things various Korean professors told me over the years, though a lot of it came from this book:

표인주. 남도 민속학. 광주광역시, Chonnam National University Press, 2014.