Silk was once a closely guarded secret of China. Even the slightest whisper of its origin could result in death. Many schemes were concocted to discover silk’s origin. But the death penalty was absolute.
But the origin story goes like this: Once upon a Chinese time, the beautiful Empress Leizu was drinking tea under the shade of a Mulberry bush. A silkworm cocoon dropped into her tea. The tea’s heat loosened the cocoon’s strands. The empress used her teacup to lift the cocoon. It began to unravel. Curious by nature, Leizu noticed that the cocoon was constructed of a long fiber strand. Leizu began thinking that this long strand could create a fabric piece.
The Empress shared her discovery with her husband, Huangdi, aka The Yellow Emperor. He found this discovery interesting and urged his wife to keep studying it. She began closely watching her Mulberry trees. As Leizu watched more silk cocoons fall from the tree, she collected them. The more she collected, the more important they seemed.
Eventually she had enough threads for her planned garment. Some old legends mentioned the empress invented both the silk reel and the silk loom. She is now titled Goddess of the Silkworm and the Silkworm Mother.
Despite all of China’s protections, the secret of silkworms got out, albeit slowly and somewhat sneakily. The Byzantine Emperor sneakily hired some monks to conceal silkworm eggs in their canes. Onward the secrets of silk construction traveled. No longer was silk the sole possession of China.
So came about the Silk Road in 130BC. It was initially designed as a trade route and then established as a pathway between the Middle East and Europe. Many today seek to travel the entire Silk Road, but sadly it no longer exists. Portions of it have been retained for memory purposes only.
There are many squabbles about Empress Leizu being the inventor, especially since there is a silk history going back way over to 3,630 BC. But she is still called Silkworm Mother.
