‘Feather bedding’, taken from the idea of nest and how birds feather the insides of their nests, is a comparison we use to describe our own desire to make a nice comfortable, safe, secure nest with all possible comforts.
A mattress or mattress topper filled with fine feathers, down or a mixture of the two is a joy. In earlier times, when mattresses were made of straw or other less comfortable materials, a feather topper was the essential luxury item. And today we still like a nice soft ‘feather bed’ over our supporting mattress, however well made the mattress.
A good duvet wrapped over the mattress and beneath the sheet does the job just as well and a duvet can always be cut down or joined to fit an awkwardly sized bed.
In the absence of down, alternative materials such as wool, even thistle down, or dandelion clocks were used in the past – they must have taken quite some time to collect…