The Tale of Heungbu is one of the five great pansori stories, telling of a wealthy but stingy older brother, Nolbu, and his poor but kind-hearted younger brother, Heungbu, who is eventually rewarded with fortune. The story is understood to have originated from folk tales circulating in the late Joseon period around the Unbong area — now part of Namwon — known as the "Bakcheomji tale" and the "Chunbo tale." In these earlier versions, a wealthy older brother named Bakcheomji is a miser, while his poor younger brother Chunbo lives honestly, eventually becomes wealthy, and does great good for his neighbors.
For a long time, exactly which village these folk tales were set in was passed down only through oral tradition. That changed in 1992, when the Folklore Research Institute at Kyung Hee University conducted an on-site verification study and reached a specific conclusion: Heungbu's birthplace was Seongsan-ri in Inwol-myeon, Namwon, while the place where he settled and became wealthy — his so-called "place of fortune" — was Seong-ri in Ayeong-myeon, Namwon. Today, Seongsan Village still preserves sites tied to the story: Yeonsangyo Bridge, said to be the one Heungbu built to repay the swallow's kindness; Bakcheomji's Tomb, believed to be Nolbu's grave; and Bakcheomji's Field, said to be where Heungbu threshed his grain. It's a rare case where scholars managed to pin the fictional home of two folk-tale brothers to an actual spot on the map.