How did xi ling-shi make silk?

The legendary queen Xi Ling Shi (also known as Leizu) was the 14-year-old bride of the Yellow Emperor of China, and is credited as the first to use silk as a cloth. The folklore lists conflicting accounts of her discovery. One account (attributed to Confucius) is that while she was drinking tea outdoors, a cocoon fell into the hot liquid and unraveled. Another is that she discovered a worm while investigating damaged mulberry trees, and found that it was spinning silk.

In either case, she found that the thread could be unwound into long filaments, very light but very strong, and had silk reels and looms built to weave silk yarn and cloth.

No doubt many previous cultures had discovered the cocoons (related to those of other insects, and to spider webs), but China had a virtual monopoly on silk production from the time of Xi Ling Shi (c. 2640 BC?) until the period 200 BC (for Korea) to 300 AD (for India). Europeans began making silk around 550 AD and by the 13th century, Italy became a center for silk making and designs.