Wegakkwi
Lore
Wegakkwi (외각귀), better known as the One-Legged Demon, is a sinister spirit with a bizarre body and equally strange habits. It shows up mostly on gray, rainy days, and any visit to a human home is a bad omen—someone inside is about to fall ill. The creature never walks: it covers the ground in lightning-fast bounds, swift enough to ride the wind.
You’ll almost always see Wegakkwi dressed in the everyday rain gear of common Joseon-era travelers—a huge straw hat and a straw cloak. That outfit isn’t random. Straw clothing was cheap, practical, and offered protection from rain, wind, and sun, so it ties the spirit to the raw forces of nature and to rural folk culture; it’s decidedly from the lower rungs of society, not the aristocracy.
Like many Korean spirits, Wegakkwi favors gloom, fog, and drizzle—times when the boundary between the living and the dead blurs. Some tales add another giveaway: a strong, fishy stench. The smell sets it apart from other ghosts and makes it even more unsettling.
