Hallasan (한라산 / 漢拏山)

This volcano, risen from the heart of Jeju Island, takes the whole island as its body. The name *Halla* (漢拏) means to pull down the Milky Way, and it appears already carved into documents from the fourteenth century. That a mountain should drag the heavens toward itself — perhaps that was never praise. Perhaps it was a warning.

At the summit crater lies Baengnoktam (白鹿潭), the White Deer Pond. A legend persists that white deer once came here to drink, yet among those who climb the mountain a quiet story circulates: no one who claims to have seen such a deer with their own eyes ever came back down. Even on clear days the surface of the water is unsettlingly dark, and there are those who feel that the clouds reflected in it do not match the clouds above.

Scattered across the mountain's flanks are the subsidiary craters known as *oreum*. Each is a vent through which the mountain once exhaled, and the local people keep their distance from certain of them after dusk. The sense that something inside those openings has not yet gone cold passes down, intact, from one generation to the next.

Hallasan has long been counted among the Three Sacred Mountains (三神山), alongside Geumgangsan and Jirisan — mountains where immortals dwell, where herbs of eternal life are said to grow. Records tell that Xu Fu (서불), dispatched by the First Emperor of Qin, sailed as far as this island in search of such herbs. What exactly he took away with him, no one has ever been able to confirm.

It is classified as a dormant volcano, though among geologists the possibility that it remains active is raised with careful, measured unease. The mountain may not be sleeping. It may simply be holding its breath. Most hiking guides neglect to mention that one of its peaks bears the name Dumueorum (頭無岳) — the Headless Summit.