The silkworm-horse is the ancestor of silkworms in ancient Chinese myth.
As the legend goes, in the ancient times, there is an old man who went on a long journey and left her only daughter at home. Missing her father very much, the daughter joked with their horse, “If you can bring Daddy back home, I will marry you.” Hearing this, the horse broke the reins and galloped out of the courtyard. A few days later, the horse did drive his father back, yet the daughter broke her promise. Having been informed of the truth, the father killed the horse, peeled off horse hide and tried to dry it in the courtyard. However, the hide suddenly flied, wrapped the daughter and disappeared… Within a few days, the daughter was found in the leaves of a big tree. She had become a silkworm who was spinning and cocooning on the tree and the tree was known as the mulberry. The daughter was worshipped as the “Goddess of Silkworm”, also called the “Lady with a Horse Head” or the “Goddess with a Horse Head”. She was known as “Lady Silkworm Flower” and “Bodhisattva Asvaghosa” in the south of the Yangtze River.
Link : | China Daily | Chinaculture.org |
