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When the body of the queen was placed in this manner, the herd of beasts was driven upon it, and trod it down deep with their multitude of feet. Such was the end of Swanhild. Meantime, the favourite dog of Broder came creeping to the king making a sort of moan, and seemed to bewail its master's punishment; and his hawk, when it was brought in, began to pluck out its breast-feathers with its beak.
The chief wears a headdress or cap made by fixing the breast-feathers of the Toucan on a web of Bromelia twine, with erect tail plumes of macaws rising from the crown. The cinctures of the arms and legs are also then ornamented with bunches of feathers.
Farther and farther inland they travelled; and there were woods and lakes everywhere. In a birch-grove sat the wood-dove on a naked branch, and before him stood the lady-dove. He blew up his feathers, cocked his head, raised and lowered his body, until the breast-feathers rattled against the branch. All the while he cooed: "Thou, thou, thou art the loveliest in all the forest.
And the reflection which she makes in the water below shows an azure-blue body, like a reflection of the sky above, with some of the breast-feathers scorched to a rusty red. And now you know how it all came about. Centuries and centuries ago, when men were first made, there was no such thing as fire known in all the world.
The rustling of her skirts and the emphatic tones of her voice aroused the parrot, which had been dosing on its perch, its head sunk between its shoulders and its breast-feathers fluffed out into a little green apron over its grey claws. "Pollie's own pet girlie," it murmured drowsily, with dry clickings of its tongue against its beak, the words jolting out in foolish twos and threes.
It is pitiful to see wee frost-pinched sparrows on cold mornings in the mountain groves shaking the snow from their feathers, and hopping about as if anxious to be cheery, then hastening back to their hidings out of the wind, puffing out their breast-feathers over their toes, and subsiding among the leaves, cold and breakfastless, while the snow continues to fall, and there is no sign of clearing.
Then it was that the beautiful stiff wing-feathers, which should have been spread in flight, were worn upon the hats of women; and the soft white breast-feathers, which should have been brooding brownish eggs all spattered over with pretty marks, were stuffed into feather-beds for people to sleep on.
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