According to legend, when Pyeonggang was a little girl and wouldn't stop crying, her father, King Pyeongwan, would jokingly threaten to marry her to Ondal, a beggar boy of low class known as a fool.[3] When Pyeonggang was 16, her father wanted her to marry a son of the noble Go family.[3][4] Pyeonggang refused, and insisted that she should be married to Ondal - because, she said, her father must keep his word, even to someone with extremely low status like Ondal. Thereupon, she left the palace