an amusing incident is reported as having occurred about this time. a courtier named pa-gyu observed to the king, “the male population of the country has been decimated but there are still plenty of women. for this reason it is that the mongols take so many of them. there is danger that the pure koryŭ stock will become vitiated by the intermixture of wild blood. the king should let each man take several wives and should remove the restrictions under which the sons of concubines labor." when the news of this came to the ears of the women they were up in arms, as least the married portion ; and each one read to her spouse such a lecture that the subject was soon dropped as being too warm to handle. when the king passed through the streets with pa-gyu in his retinue the women would point to the latter and say “there goes the man who would make concubines of us all."