Vestiges of the Three Kingdoms of Ancient Korea (Samguk yusa) is the first annotated English translation of one of the most important premodern Korean historical texts. One of only two surviving works on the Three Kingdoms period (57 BCE–668) and Greater Silla (668–936), the Samguk yusa is a rich collection of historical, supernatural, and mythical stories, including one of the earliest surviving narratives of Tan’gun, who in modern times came to be regarded as the mythical or legendary progenitor of the Korean people.

Compiled primarily in classical Chinese during...