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“You often read about the falcon hunts of the days before the invention of sporting guns and smokeless powder, but these hunts must have been tame compared to a modern Korean wolf ...

While travelers may have welcomed Korean country inns as a sanctuary from tigers, wolves and the elements, they were not a sanctuary from other predations. Scattered amongst the articles published in newspapers and magazines from the late 19th and early 20th centuries are accounts of robberies and murders that took place in lonely inns. Fortunately, foreigners were rarely victims of these violent attacks, but they, along with the other patrons of the inn, had to contend with the most notorious offenders: bedbugs.

While travelers may have welcomed Korean country inns as a sanctuary from tigers, wolves and the elements, they were not a sanctuary from other predations. Scattered amongst the articles published in newspapers and magazines from the late 19th and early 20th centuries are accounts of robberies and murders that took place in lonely inns. Fortunately, foreigners were rarely victims of these violent attacks, but they, along with the other patrons of the inn, had to contend with the most notorious offenders: bedbugs.

In May 1880, the Korean port of Wonsan opened to Japanese trade and almost immediately the first tales of tiger encounters began to appear in Japanese newspapers. A Japanese resident in that port described - almost poetically - one of these early encounters.

Cryptozoology is the study of creatures that are rumored to exist. But for true believers, these "cryptids" are alive and well and lurking among us.