Feather cloaks have been used by several cultures. It constituted noble and royal attire in and other Polynesian regions. It is a mythical bird-skin object that imparts power of flight upon the Gods in mythology and legend, including the account. In medieval Ireland, the chief poet (filí or ollam) was entitled to wear a feather cloak.
The feather robe or cloak (Chinese: yuyi; Japanese: hagoromo; ) was considered the clothing of the Immortals (xian; ), and features in swan maiden tale types where a tennyo ( "heavenly woman") robbed of her clothing or "feather robe" and becomes bound to live on mortal earth. 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.
Hawaii
Elaborate feather cloaks called were created by early Hawaiians, and usually reserved for the use of high chiefs and aliʻi (royalty).
The scarlet honeycreeper (Vestiaria coccinea) was the main source of red feathers. Yellow feathers were collected in small amounts each time from the mostly black ʻōʻō (Moho spp.) or the mamo (Drepanis pacifica).
Another strictly regal item was the , a symbolic "staff of state" or standard, consisting of pole with plumage attached to the top of it. Princess Nāhiʻenaʻena in her portrait (cf. fig. right) is depicted holding a while wearing a feather cloak., repr. , p. xiii, "" She would typically wear a feather cloak with a feather coronet and she would match these with a pair of ('skirts') which ordinarily would be barkcloth skirt, however, she also had a magnificent yellow feather skirt made for her, which featured in her funerary services.
Other famous examples include: Kamehameha's feather cloak - made entirely of the golden-yellow feather of the mamo, inherited by Kamehameha I. King Kalākaua displayed this artefact to emphasize his own legitimate authority. Kiwalao's feather cloak - King Kīwalaʻō's cloak, captured by half-brother Kamehameha I who slew him in 1782. It symbolized leadership and was worn by chieftains during times of war. Liloa's kāʻei - sash of King Līloa of the island of Hawaii
Hawaiian mythology A mythical enemy-incinerating kapa (barkcloth) cape, retold as a feather skirt in one telling, occurs in Hawaiian mythology. In the tradition regarding the hero ʻAukelenuiaʻīkū. The hero's grandmother Moʻoinanea, who is the matriarch of divine lizards (, or simply moʻo), gives him her severed tail which transforms into a cape (or , i.e. tapa) that turns enemies into ashes, and sends him off on a quest to woo his destined wife, Nāmaka. Nāmaka (who is predicted to attack him when he visits) will be immune to the cape's powers. She is also a granddaughter or descendant of the lizard, and has been given the lizard's battle pāʻū (skirt) and kāhili (feathered staff), also conferred with power to destroy enemy into ashes. In one retelling, Moʻoinanea (Ka-moʻo-inanea) gives her grandson ʻAukele her "feather skirt" and kāhili which "by shaking.. can reduce his enemies to ashes".
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.
Māori It has been noted there is a pan-Polynesian culture of valuing the use of feathers in garments, especially of red colour, and there had even existed ancient trade in feathers. While various featherwork apparel were widespread across Polynesia, feather capes were limited to Hawaiʻi and New Zealand.
The Māori feather cloak or kahu huruhuru are known for their rectangular-shaped examples.Te Ara The most prized were the red feathers which in Māori culture signified chiefly rank,Te Ara and were taken from the kākā parrot to make the kahu kura which literally means 'red cape'.
The feather garment continues to be utilized as symbolic of rank or respect.
Brazil
The feather cloak or cape was traditional to the coastal Tupi people, notably the Tupinambá. The cape was called (var. ) in Tupi–Guarani, so called from the red plumage of guará (Eudocimus ruber, scarlet ibis) and not only did it have a hood at the top, citing naturalist George Marcgraf (1610–1644) but it was meant to cover the body to simulate becoming a bird, and even included a buttocks piece called enduaps. These feather capes were worn by Tupian shamans or (var. ) during rituals, and clearly held religious or sacred meaning. The cape was also worn in battle, but it has been clarified that the warrior as well as his victim were deliberately dressed as birds as executioners and the offering in ritual sacrifices.
Germanic A bird- (pl. ) or feather cloak that enables the wearers to take the form of, or become, birds are widespread in Germanic mythology and legend. The goddess Freyja was known for her "feathered or falcon cloak" (, ), which could be borrowed by others to use, and the Þjazi may have had something similar, referred to as an (eagle-shape or coat).
The term has the dual meaning of "skin" or "shape", and in this context, has been translated variously as "feather-skin", "feather-fell", "feather-cloak", "feather coat", "feather-dress",Bellows tr. (1923) "coat of feathers", or form, shape or guise. Skaldskaparmal
The topic is often discussed in the broader sense of "ability to fly", inclusive of Óðinn's ability to transform into bird shape, and Wayland's flying contraption. This wider categorization is necessitated due to ambiguity: in the case of Óðinn (and Suttungr) resorting to the arnarhamr ("eagle cloak"), it is unclear whether this should be construed literally to mean the use of a garment, "Odin als auch der Riese Suttungr einen arnarhamr ('Adlerhemd')" 'eagle shirt'.: "[Odin] turned himself into the eagle's coat, and.. Suttung.. betook himself to his eagle-skin" or be taken metaphorically as shape-shifting (e.g. "changed into eagle-shape"), perhaps by use of magic. Also, Völundr's "wing" is not a "feather cloak" per se, but only likened to it (cf. ).
Gods and jötnar
In Norse mythology, goddesses Freyja (as aforementioned) and Frigg each own a feather cloak that imparts the ability of flight.
Freyja is not attested as using the cloak herself, however she lent her ("feather cloak") to Loki so he could fly to Jötunheimr after Þórr's hammer went missing in Þrymskviða, and to rescue Iðunn from the Þjazi in Skáldskaparmál who had abducted the goddess while in an ("eagle shape"). The latter episode is also attested in the poem Haustlöng, where Freyja's garment is referred to as "hawk's flying-fur", or "hawk's flight-skin"Haustlöng quoted in Skaldskaparmál 22, and the employs a "cloak/shape of eagle".
Loki also uses Frigg's feather cloak to journey to Geirröðargarða ("Geirröðr's courts" in Jötunheimr), referred to here as a ("falcon-feathered cloak").
Óðinn is described as being able to change his shape into that of animals, as attested in the Ynglinga saga. discusses the transformation of gods "donning a feather coat", and in the attached footnoted (, p. 206) with an association with Oðinn's ability to transform into creatures in the Ynglinga saga. Furthermore, in the story of the Mead of Poetry from Skáldskaparmál, although Óðinn changes attire into an "eagle skin" (), this is interpreted as assuming an "eagle-form" or "shape", especially by later scholars; meanwhile, scholar Ruggerini argues Óðinn can use shape-shifting magic without the need of such skin, in contrast to the jötunn Suttung, who must put on his "eagle skin" () in order to pursue him.
Völsunga saga
In the Völsunga saga, the wife of King Rerir is unable to conceive a child and so the couple prays to Oðinn and Frigg for help. Hearing this, Frigg then sends one of her maids (Hljóð, possibly a valkyrja) wearing a (crow-cloak) to give the royal couple a magic apple which when eaten, made the queen pregnant with her son Völsung.
Swan maidens There were also the three swan-maidens, also described as valkyrjur, and owned sets of "swan's garments" or "swan cloaks" (; sing.:), and these gave the wearer the form of a swan. And the maidens were wedded to Wayland the Smith and his brothers, according to the prose prologue to Völundarkviða ("Lay of Wayland").
This bears similarity to the account of the eight with in Helreið Brynhildar.
Wayland
The master smith Wayland () uses some sort of device to fly away and escape from King Niðhad after he is hamstrung, as described in the Eddic lay Völundarkviða. The lay has Völundr saying he has regained his "webbed feet" which soldiers had taken away from him, and with it he is able to soar into air. This is explained as a circumlocution for him recovering a magical artifact (perhaps a ring), which allows him to transform into a swan or such waterfowl with webbed feet. An alternate interpretation is that the text here should not be construed as "feet" but "wings" ("feather coat or artificial wings"), which gave him ability to fly away.
The second "wing" scenario coincides with the version of the story given in Þiðreks saga, where Völundr's brother Egill shot birds and collected plumage for him, providing him with the raw material for crafting a set of wings, and this latter story is also corroborated on depictions on the panels of the 8th-century whale-bone Franks Casket.
In the Þiðreks saga Wayland (here )'s device is referred to as "wings" or rather a single "wing" (, a term borrowed from the German ) but is described as resembling a , supposedly flayed from a griffin, or vulture, or an ostrich. Some modern commentators suggest that the Low German source originally just meant "wings", but the Norse translators took license to interpret it as being just like a "feather cloak". In the saga version, Velent not only requested his brother Egill to obtain the plumage material (as aforementioned) but also asks Egill to wear the wings first to perform a test flight. Afterwards Velent himself escapes with the wings, and instructs Egil to shoot him aiming at the concealed blood sack prop to fake his death.
Metaphorical sense As already noted, hamr could mean either a physical "skin" or the abstract "shape", and though on first blush, Freyja seems to have a (literally) a "feather cloak" she could lend to others, Larrington for instance glosses the feather cloak not as a 'skin' but an 'attribute' of the goddess which gives her ability to fly. Vincent Samson explains the hamr as the physical aspect taken on by a mobile (or transmigrating) soul when undergoing animal transformation, noting that François-Xavier Dillmann defines hamr as "external form of the soul".
Germanic translations of Celtic material
The Breton lai of Bisclavret was translated in the Old Norse Strengleikar, the notion of "shape of animal" was rendered as hamr. Another instance of such figure of speech usage occurs in the Old Norse telling of the British king's flying contraption, cf. below:
Bladud's wings The legendary king Bladud of the Celtic Britons fashioned himself a pair of wings () to fly with, according to the original account in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae. This winged contraption is rendered as a "" in the Old Norse translation Breta sögur, here meant strictly as a flying suit, not a means of transformation into bird.
Bladud's wings are also rendered into Middle English as "", cognate with , in Layamon's Brut version of Geoffrey's History.
Other 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.
Celtic King Bladud of Britain created artificial wings to enable flight according to Galfridian sources, conceived of as "feather skin" in Old Norse and Middle English versions (as already discussed above in ).
Poet's cloak