For Americans of Korean ancestry, folksong, dance, and legend are a cherished part of their Asian heritage. At this year's Festival, dances, songs, and legends taken from Korean harvest and fertility celebrations of spring and summer are enacted on the Mall each day.

The origins of the rites of fertility and harvest in Korea are certainly very ancient. Burial sites from the Three Kingdoms period (37 B.C.- 668 A.D.) in south Korea have yielded evidence that the costumes, hair ornaments, and musical instruments used today were an essential part of court ritual in that early period. But the advent of Confucianism during the Koryo Dynasty (918-