Leizu- Chinese GodDeity"First Sericulturist"
Also known as: Léizǔ, 嫘祖, Xīlíng Shì, Xiling Shi, and 西陵氏
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Description
Wife of the Yellow Emperor, Leizu discovered silk when a silkworm cocoon fell into her tea beneath a mulberry tree and unraveled into a single luminous thread. She taught her people to raise silkworms, reel their cocoons, and weave the fiber into fabric. China guarded the secret for millennia.
Mythology & Lore
The Cocoon in the Tea
According to the tradition most widely told, Leizu, the Lady of Xiling, was sitting beneath a mulberry tree in the palace garden when a silkworm cocoon dropped into her cup of hot tea. As she fished it out, the heated silk began to unravel, and from the dissolving cocoon she drew a single continuous thread of remarkable strength and sheen.
From this accident she developed the craft that would define her legacy. She learned to cultivate silkworms on mulberry leaves and to reel and weave the raw thread into fabric. The Shiji records that she was the principal wife of Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor, married from the Xiling clan. Where her husband is credited with innovations in governance and warfare, Leizu gave China silk.
The Empress and the Mulberry Leaf
Leizu's deification as the Silkworm Mother made her the divine patron of sericulture. The Liji and later dynastic records document annual imperial rituals in which the empress herself conducted a ceremonial mulberry-leaf harvest each spring to inaugurate the silk season.
At the household level, women who raised silkworms maintained shrines to Leizu, offering prayers for healthy worms and abundant harvests. The work was delicate: silkworms are fragile creatures, sensitive to noise, temperature, and impure air. Leizu presided over every stage, from the first feeding of mulberry leaves to the final unwinding of the golden thread.