Myths and legends surround the origins of silk.
The story I like most is how almost five thousand years ago, the Chinese Emperor asked his wife to find out what was eating his mulberry trees.
On the trees, the emperor's wife, Hsi-Ling-Shi, found white grubs eating away at the leaves. She thought that she could destroy the insects by dropping the cocoons into boiling water.
What she found was that the hot water dissolved enough of the 'glue' holding the cocoon together to reveal a continuous thread that she was eventually able to spin to make thread thick enough to weave cloth.
Hsi-Ling-Shi persuaded her husband, Emperor Huang-Ti to grow a grove of mulberry trees for her so that she could cultivate enough cocoons to weave more silk cloth.
This is how Hsi-Ling-Shi became the very first sericulturalist.
Silk production was to remain a guarded secret by the Chinese for three thousand years.
Today, silkworms cannot survive in the wild and are fully domesticated.
The silkworm moth cannot fly and would fall easily fall prey to predators.
Emperor Huang-Ti (Yellow Emperor)
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