Feather cloak

However, the so-called "feather robe" of the Chinese and Japanese celestial woman came to be regarded as silk clothing or scarves around the shoulder in subsequent literature and iconography.

[15][17][18][b] Other famous examples include: A mythical enemy-incinerating kapa (barkcloth) cape, retold as a feather skirt in one telling, occurs in Hawaiian mythology.

[24][25] A commentator has argued that the feather garment of Nāhiʻenaʻena was regarded as imbued with the apotropaic "powers of a woman's genitals", reminiscent of the mythic pāʻū which Hiʻiaka was given by Pele.

[d][29][30] The most prized were the red feathers which in Māori culture signified chiefly rank,[31][29] and were taken from the kaka parrot to make the kahu kura which literally means 'red cape'.

The goddess Freyja was known for her "feathered or falcon cloak" (fjaðrhamr, valshamr), which could be borrowed by others to use, and the jötunn Þjazi may have had something similar, referred to as an arnarhamr (eagle-shape or coat).

Hearing this, Frigg then sends one of her maids (Hljóð, possibly a valkyrja) wearing a krákuhamr (crow-cloak) to give the royal couple a magic apple which when eaten, made the queen pregnant with her son Völsung.

[98][99][93] The master smith Wayland (Old Norse: Völundr) uses some sort of device to fly away and escape from King Niðhad after he is hamstrung, as described in the Eddic lay Völundarkviða.

[k][l][m][113][112][114] Some modern commentators suggest that the Low German source[117] originally just meant "wings", but the Norse translators took license to interpret it as being just like a "feather cloak".

below: The legendary king Bladud of the Celtic Britons fashioned himself a pair of wings (Latin: alia) to fly with, according to the original account in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae.

[122] This winged contraption is rendered as a "fjaðrhamr" in the Old Norse translation Breta sögur,[123][53] here meant strictly as a flying suit, not a means of transformation into bird.

[124][125] There are bird-people depicted on the Oseberg tapestry fragments, which may be some personage or deity wearing winged cloaks, but it is difficult to identify the figures or even ascertain gender.

[128][129][134] Although John O'Donovan recognized an attestation to the cloak in the Lebor na Cert ("Book of Rights"), where verses by Benén mac Sescnéin are quoted, this may be an artefact of interpretive translation.

In O'Donovan's rendition, the verse reads that the rights of the Kings of Cashel rested with the chief poet of Ireland, together with his bird cloak (Taiḋean), where the term taeidhean (normalized as taiden) is construed to be synonymous with tugen.

[q][138][133] However, taíden is glossed as "Band, troop, company"[139] and in a modern translation Myles Dillon renders the same line ("Fogébthar i taeib na taídean") as "The answer will always be found at the assemblies" with no mention of the bird cloak.

It is arguably the oldest example, a version being found in the Xuan zhong ji [zh] and a slight variant in the Soushenji both dating to the 4th century.

[160][r] Early literary attestations are rather scant, though the Chu Ci (楚辞) anthology may be cited (poetic work entitled Yuan You) as mentioning the yuren.

[161][162] A later commentator of the early Tang dynasty, Yan Shigu clarifies that the winged garment yuyi was made from bird feathers, and signifies the gods and immortals taking flight.

[u][165][v] Regarding the High Tang period Emperor Xuanzong, legend has it that he composed or arranged the Nishang yuyi qu [zh] ("Melody of the Rainbow Skirts, Feathered Coats").

According to the fabulous account (preserved in Taiping Guangji), the Emperor was conveyed to the immortal realm (Lunar Palace) by a xian named Luo Gongyuan [zh].

The "rainbow skirts" and "feathered coats" in the tune's title have been surmised by commentators to refer to the clothing described as worn by the dancing immortal women in this account, namely the "white loose-fitting silk dress".

[167] Hence it is supposed that in the popular image of those times, the celestial "feather coats" were being regarded as silken, more specifically "white glossed silk" garments.

In the tale type, the Weaver Maiden is usually forcibly taken back to her celestial home, and the earthly Cowherd follows after, using various items, including heavenly costumes and girdles, but also oxen or oxhide in many cases.

[188] In particular, the 2nd panel of 6 depicts a woman[189] with a peculiar costume said to be a "feather garment", with "petal-shaped lobes overlapping like scales, extending from top to bottom".

[188] Art historian Kazuo Kosugi [ja] goes as far as to say this was an homage or allusion to the Chinese Daoist tradition that divinity and immortals wore yingyi made of bird's feathers.

[191] The ancient swan maiden type myth does not only occur in the Ōmi fudoki [ja] where the heavenly woman is forcibly married to a man.

), Princess Kaguya mounts a flying cart and ascends to the "Moon Palace", while the angelic tennin who arrived to escort her also brought for her the hagoromo feather garment as well as the medicine of immortality and agelessness.

[198] The ancient legend about the Princess Tsuminoe [ja] classed as a hagoromo densetsu ("tradition of the robe of feathers"),[199] fails to clarify on how she was able to flew away as tennnyo in the older version.

[191] But even in the context of the shenxian garments, later literature dating to the golden age of Tang ascribe the Daoist heavenly immortals wearing spun and softened silk, as in the legendary tale surrounding the "Melody of the Rainbow Gown and the Feathered Robe [zh]" (q.v., § China above).

[ae] Dliġeaḋ cach riġ ó riġ Caisil bíḋ ceist ar ḃárdaiḃ co bráth, fo gebthar i taeiḃ na Taiḋean ac suaiḋ na n-Gaeiḋel co gnáth The Right of each king from the king of Caiseal, Shall be question to bards for ever: It shall be found along with the Taeidhean With the chief poet of the Gaeidhil constantly