This chapter explores the peninsular environment as the backdrop for the wild animals that live on it. To argue that not all wild animals were equally important to hunters or the state, I categorise the beasts most frequently encountered in the mountains, valleys, plains and pages of the historical records. Some held more significance in terms of protein, others for ritual needs, and yet more for medicinal, economic, or symbolic purposes. Some beasts were outright dangerous and a threat to people regardless of social class. The second half of this chapter studies the social role of animals in premodern Korea. How did people think about and ‘use’ animals in non-material ways? Part of the answer includes the adoption of animals as symbols of legitimacy and power by early political leaders, commoners and the lowborn. These beasts of the wild helped people from all social status groups make sense of their worlds.

About 70 per cent of the Korean peninsula is covered in mountains, including the Chiri, Hamgyŏng and T’aebaek ranges in addition to a number of minor mountain ranges. The tallest mountains are located in the north-east, part of a spine of mountains along the eastern region stretching to the south. The T’aebaek range is the longest. The east coast and north to the Yalu and Tumen rivers are more heavily mountainous than the southwest. A number of these mountains reach 1,700 metres (5,500 ft) tall and continue to this day to be difficult to access. Mongol demands for wooden ships, during the two failed invasions of Japan in the 1270s and 1280s, may have resulted in the deforestation of some areas around the capital region near present-day Kaesŏng. The founding of the new capital, Hanyang (Seoul), in the early fifteenth century further upset this equilibrium as the government demanded greater supplies of timber for buildings, temples and warships. Noting the impact of such a demand, officials put in place government policies and attempted to counterbalance this effect by nurturing pine forests. However, areas in the north were most likely heavily forested in the late Koryŏ and early Chosŏn eras.