소설

The solar term Soseol (小雪) is so (小), "small," and seol (雪), "snow": the name of the solar term, falling between Ipdong and Daeseol, from which snow is said to begin to fall. It comes around 22 or 23 November, and in 2026 on Sunday 22 November. It is a different word from soseol (小說), "novel," with which it shares only its sound; the first character, small, is the same, but the second parts ways, snow (雪) in one and speech (說) in the other. The Standard Korean Language Dictionary of the National Institute of the Korean Language defines the solar term Soseol as "one of the twenty-four solar terms. It falls between Ipdong and Daeseol, when the celestial longitude of the sun reaches 240 degrees. It is around 22 or 23 November." Q: What does the solar term Soseol mean? A: So (小), "small," and seol (雪), "snow": one of the twenty-four solar terms, between Ipdong and Daeseol, meaning that the first snow begins to fall. It comes around 22 or 23 November, and in 2026 on Sunday 22 November. It is a different word from soseol (小說), "novel." Begin with the name. Among the twenty-four terms only two names carry the character for snow (雪), Soseol and Daeseol, and they stand side by side a fortnight apart. The small snow comes first, the great snow after. Why, then, was the term of the first snow named not "first snow" but "small snow"? The entry on Soseol in the Yueling qishi'erhou jijie (月令七十二候集解), said to have been compiled by Wu Cheng (吳澄) of the Yuan, reads "小雪，十月中。雨下而為寒氣所薄，故凝而為雪。小者，未盛之辭。" (after the Wikisource transcription). Soseol is the mid-term (中) of the tenth month (十月); rain, pressed by the cold air as it falls, congeals into snow; and "small" (小) is a word meaning "not yet in full force." It is not the day snow first falls, but the season when snow is not yet much. The same book records the three pentads (三候) into which the fortnight of Soseol is divided by fives: "虹藏不見," the rainbow is hidden and not seen; "天氣上升，地氣下降," the breath of heaven rises and the breath of earth descends; and "閉塞而成冬," all is closed and stopped, and winter is formed. The phrase "閉塞而成冬" from the Liji's "Monthly Ordinances," met in the Ipdong entry, is set here as the last pentad of Soseol. If Ipdong is the day winter is set standing, Soseol is the day its door closes. The character 雪 places under rain (雨) a shortened form of 彗, a broom, and is taken, by the common view of scholars of the script, to draw that which falls like rain yet can be swept up with a broom: snow. The Shuowen jiezi glosses 雪 as "凝雨，說物者。从雨彗聲" (after the Wikisource transcription): congealed rain, that which gladdens all things, following 雨 with 彗 as its sound. 小 is taken, by the common view, to draw three small grains. 小雪, then, is snow that falls in small grains and has not yet piled up enough to be swept. Soseol is the day the sun reaches 240 degrees of celestial longitude. Because the terms follow the sun's position, the solar date stays almost the same however the lunar date shifts, and Soseol falls on 22 or 23 November. Since the twenty-four terms were named in China before they came to this land, the name "small snow" does not match the first snow of the Korean land exactly every year. Even so, the first snow in the mountains and the morning's thin ice often coincide with the Soseol of the calendar. Q: When is Soseol in 2026? A: Sunday 22 November. It comes a fortnight after Ipdong (Saturday 7 November); a fortnight further on is Daeseol, and a month on is Dongji (Tuesday 22 December). On the farms of Joseon, Soseol was paired with Ipdong. The tenth-month song of Jeong Hak-yu's (丁學游) Nongga wollyeongga (農家月令歌) opens "the tenth month is first winter; Ipdong and Soseol are its terms" (rendering the Wikisource transcription of the old spelling, 십월은 맹동이라 닙동 소셜 졀긔로다). It calls the tenth lunar month maengdong (孟冬), first winter, and binds Ipdong and Soseol together as the two terms of that month. The same song goes on to say that the radish and cabbage should be pulled and brought in for gimjang, and washed clean in the stream before the house and salted to taste. The order of household life, with gimjang settled into the fortnight that runs from Ipdong to Soseol, is inside the song. The story of gimjang has been told separately in the gimjang and dongchimi entries, so here it is enough to note that Soseol stands where it is finished. Sayings about the cold follow Soseol. "The Soseol cold comes even if it must borrow to do so" is one that is passed on, and "the unlined trousers of the first ten days become the padded trousers of the last ten" is another. The first turns the certainty that cold will come at Soseol into the image of a debt that will be paid whatever it costs; the second says that within the single tenth lunar month clothing changes from unlined to padded. Q: What is the Soseol cold? A: A name for the first cold that comes around Soseol. It arose from the saying that however mild the days have been, once Soseol comes the wind turns cold and thin ice forms, and the proverb "the Soseol cold comes even if it must borrow to do so" is passed on with it. The Soseol cold has one more name: sondol-baram, the Sondol wind, or the Sondol cold. The tenth-month section of Hong Seok-mo's (洪錫謨) Dongguk sesigi (東國歲時記) records "二十日每年有大風寒謂之孫石風" (after the Wikisource transcription): on the twentieth day there is every year a great wind and cold, called the Sonseok wind. It goes on to tell that when a king of Goryeo (麗王) entered Ganghwa by sea, the boatman Sonseok (孫石) steered the boat into a dangerous channel; the king, suspicious and angry, had him beheaded, and shortly after the boat passed out of danger; the place is still called Sonseok-hang (孫石項), and the wind is laid to the grievance of the man killed on that very day (麗王疑怒命斬之 未幾脫險 至今稱其處曰孫石項 孫石之被害卽是日而怨氣使然也). The 孫石 of the transcription is the name written today as Sondol (孫乭), as in Sondolmok, the Sondol narrows, and the day the almanac names falls each year close to Soseol. This article does not set the legend up as fact. What deserves notice is the road. One man's name became the name of a wind, the wind's name became the name of a kind of weather, and that weather took its place beside the phrase "Soseol cold." Sondolmok survives today as the name of the narrow channel between Ganghwa and Gimpo. Q: What is the Sondol wind? A: A name for the bitter wind that blows around the twentieth day of the tenth lunar month, on either side of Soseol. It is said to come from the legend of a king crossing to Ganghwa who had the boatman Sondol wrongly put to death, after which a cold wind blew on that day every year. This is how Soseol is used today. It is not a public holiday, so on the calendar the two characters "Soseol" survive in small print beside 22 or 23 November, and the news says "Soseol, when the first snow is said to fall," following it with the first snow in the mountains, the morning temperature and word of thin ice. News of gimjang leans toward its finishing at this season, and the lifestyle pages speak of readying water meters and boilers for winter. In the search box the same two syllables are shared between the storybook and the solar term, so one must type "Soseol solar term" for this day to appear. The Jijie's "小者未盛," small means not yet in full force, continues under the name of first-snow reports, and its "閉塞而成冬" under the phrase "readying for winter." Soseol is a name given to snow that is not yet much. Inside its two characters are 小, the small grains, and 雪, the rain that can be swept up; the Jijie's gloss that rain pressed by cold becomes snow; the farming song that paired it with Ipdong and finished the gimjang; and the legend in which a boatman's name became the name of a wind. Soseol, "small, snow": a Korean word for the day the snow is not yet in full force, the day the door of winter begins to close.