Reading Notes: Chinese Fairy Tales, Part A

 

Silkworm Cocoons on a leaf. Source: CGNT

The Girl with the Horse's Head or the Silkworm Goddess from The Chinese fairy Book by R. Wilhelm 

    This story is about a girl who is wanting her father to come home from a journey. So, one day she said to the horse she feeds that if he brought her father home she'd marry him. He went found her father and brought him home. When the daughter told her father he killed the horse. Then one day she kicks the hide of the horse basically calling him stupid. The horse-hide takes her and her friend later finds her hanging from a tree still wrapped in the horse-hide. That same friend took her cocoon down, spun, and sold the silk. One day the girl was seen on the horse and she announced that she had been assigned to watch the silkworms. There are temples built and sacrifices are offered to her.