13 timestamped notes explaining the Korean cultural context in this episode — customs, idioms, food, honorifics, and history, at the moment each appears on screen. These notes discuss events across the whole episode. To see them revealed scene-by-scene as you watch, use the episode page to find an airing.
A 족자 (jokja) is a traditional East Asian hanging scroll — a painting or piece of calligraphy mounted on silk or fabric and rolled up for storage. In Goryeo and Joseon courts they were prized possessions, and owning a portrait-scroll of someone was an intimate, almost sacred act. The fact that the young king painted one of Kim Seon reveals how deeply she was imprinted on him.
'전설의 고향' (Jeonseol-ui Gohyang, literally 'Hometown of Legends') is a long-running KBS anthology series of Korean folk horror and ghost stories, first broadcast in 1977. Koreans use the title as shorthand for an outlandish, spooky tale no sane person would believe. Sunny is basically calling Kim Shin's past-life story a ridiculous campfire legend.
군고구마 (gun-goguma) are sweet potatoes roasted in a steel drum over charcoal — one of Korea's most beloved winter street snacks. Vendors push the drums through neighbourhoods, and the smell is considered quintessentially wintry and nostalgic. Sunny demanding 5,000 won (the price of a bag) as 'proof' of a past-life story is a very Korean way of deflating a dramatic moment with earthy practicality.
In Goryeo's royal court, 기별 (gibyeol) were official written messages sent between the palace and military commanders in the field. Park Joong-heon is advising the young king to send Kim Shin a coded warning disguised as concern for his sister — a classic court manipulation tactic meant to destabilize a powerful general without an overt confrontation.
초상이 나다 literally means 'a funeral/mourning rite has broken out.' When the king says it here, he means Seon's heart has already gone into mourning — as if someone dear to her has already died — even though no one is dead yet. It's a biting way of saying her emotions have already betrayed her loyalty to him.
Korean school uniforms are expensive, so it is a common and well-regarded custom for graduating seniors to pass theirs down to younger students who need them. The homeroom teacher mentioning this at graduation is entirely routine — it signals the class's collective responsibility to those coming after them, not just individual achievement.
삼신 (Samsin) is the Korean deity of childbirth and early childhood. She is believed to 'appoint' (점지하다, jeomjihada) souls to mothers before birth and to watch over children through their early years. When Samsin says she was happy choosing Eun-tak, it echoes this traditional belief — and confirms she has been watching over this particular child from long before the drama began.
The drama establishes that the Goblin occasionally glimpses distant futures — here he is at a Joseon-era roadside tavern (주막, jumak) and sees visions of smartphones and investment opportunities centuries ahead of his time. The 주막 was the Korean equivalent of a rural inn and tavern, a common resting stop along trade routes, which makes the anachronistic vision even more jarring and comedic.
철종 12년 is 1861, during the reign of King Cheoljong (조선 제25대 왕), the 25th monarch of the Joseon dynasty. By casually citing this date, Kim Shin is confirming he witnessed something — or someone — in the mid-19th century, centuries after his Goryeo-era life, underscoring just how vast his immortal lifespan really is.
명부 (myeongbu) is the register of souls maintained in the afterlife — essentially the death ledger that the Grim Reaper consults. In Korean folk belief, a person's name appearing in the 명부 means their time has been decided by heaven, not by accident. The drama uses it as an official document, making fate feel bureaucratic and inescapable.
Eun-tak's offer to simply die so she can reincarnate and find Kim Shin again draws on a Korean (and broadly Buddhist-influenced) belief that deep bonds between souls — 인연 (inyeon) — carry across multiple lifetimes. The idea that a strong enough connection guarantees reunion in another life is a staple of Korean romantic folk sentiment, which is why her suggestion, while heartbreaking, doesn't sound absurd within the drama's emotional logic.
저승사자 (Jeoseungsaja) in Korean tradition are the afterlife's official envoys — they escort the recently dead to the underworld and maintain the boundary between the living and the dead. Unlike Western depictions, they are often portrayed in Joseon-era black official robes (흑립 and black dopo), which is exactly the Reaper's signature look in this drama. Revealing his identity to Sunny is a monumental breach of the rules governing his existence.
When Kim Shin tells the murderer to 'receive the punishment of humans,' he is deliberately choosing not to use his supernatural power to punish him directly. In Korean folk belief, a 도깨비 (dokkaebi, goblin) can mete out its own divine justice, but Kim Shin's restraint here — sending the man to the police — reflects his long-running internal conflict between his godlike power and his desire to act with human moral humility.