Folk Songs

Folk songs are largely classified into two categories: One is the functional song which is sung in specific labor, ceremony and play. The other is the unfunctional song which is sung without any purpose. The regional characteristics of the functional song are revealed by their words and places where songs are sung, whereas such characteristics are not found with the unfunctional song.

The folk songs in the Goryeong region can also be divided into the functional song category and the unfunctional song category. The former includes labor songs, ceremony songs and play songs and the latter includes the rest.

The labor songs include: rice-planting songs, rice-field weeding songs, grain-milling songs, married life songs, dry-field weeding songs, barley threshing songs, firewood gathers’ songs, loom songs and cradle songs. The ceremony songs include: the earth’s god-treading songs and pallbearers’ dirge. Swing songs belong to the play songs. The unfunctional songs include: singing beggars’ songs, love songs, white hair songs, liberation songs and oriental longheaded locust songs.