Kim So-Un studied poetry and folklore before working for a major newspaper in Seoul and as chief editor of the Korean Children's Educational Institute. He published 23 works in Korean and Japanese in a range of genres including poetry, folktales, folklore, folk songs and critical essays. Frances Carpenter had a love of foreign lands and cultures, which she observed closely during her extensive travels first with her journalist and author father and later with her diplomat husband. She traveled extensively throughout the world and served as a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and Vice President of the International Society of Woman Geographers. Setsu Higashi, who translated several of the stories in this collection, was raised and educated in Vancouver, Canada, and moved to Tokyo in 1940 when her husband, Shinobu Peter Higashi, was transferred there by the Associated Press to Tokyo. She honed her storytelling style on her son, an avid listener of her bedtime tales.