By David Cain
Balancing a peacock feather on the nose or forehead is a common and old trick in the juggler’s repertoire that goes back hundreds of years.
Jacques Sandre 1760
Francesco Orsini 1825
From the collection of Thom Wall
There is, however, a more complex version of this stunt. The Peacock Feather and Tube Trick is an old juggling stunt that uses, well, a peacock feather and a tube. If you’re not familiar with this classic trick, watch the following four videos of a clown from the Venardos Circus, Alan Tweedy Digweed, Gaston (Robert Dahlström), and Peter Åberg performing versions of it.
A couple of IJA Newsletters from 1965 featured write ups about the trick. The first of these is shown below and was written by Joe Marsh.
Another write up from the same year was written by Larry Weeks and is provided below.
THE PEACOCK FEATHER AND TUBE TRICK
For many years the Peacock Feather and Tube Trick has been in the bag of tricks of professional jugglers; clowns; and other entertainers. It gives the impression of great skill; it’s an entertaining balancing stunt; and a number of balancing stunts can be done with just the Peacock feather by itself before going into the special tricks which are per- formed with the feather and tube. Al Aldrich gets a lot out of it by not only blowing it straight up into the air and catching it on a balance on his nose or forehead as it comes down……but he also goes one step further by handing one out to the audience and having them blow the feather towards him…which he then catches on his nose or forehead perfectly balanced. He also has a surprise finish to this bit which gets a great laugh, but which we cannot reveal here, since we do not have his permission to do so. The following instruction sheet gives you some idea of what can be done with the feather and tube, and for those of you that wish to make up this trick…the ideas should prove to be helpful.
FEATHER & TUBE
Insert feather in tube, putting the quill end in first.
PRESENTATION—
Hold tube so that the quill end of feather is up and pretend to try and balance tube on chin. Give up and hold tube to mouth. Give a vigorous puff and feather will shoot up out of tube and turn over in midair and drop with the quill end down. Catch feather on palm of hand and you will find it easy to balance. Now set quill end of feather on nose. Balance it there. Do not make it look too easy. Let the feather start to tip over and now if you will take a few steps forward, feather will straighten up. Again, let feather start to fall over until it is sticking out almost horizontal and you can run all around the stage with it balanced this way. As you run, stoop lower and lower. With practice you can blow the feather into the air and as it comes down catch it on some part of your face and immediately start balancing it. Be careful not to let quill hit you in the eye.
ADDITIONAL BITS AND INSTRUCTIONS-
When practicing with feather, if you blow it out of the tube many times the feather seems to gather moisture from your breath and will not come out of tube smoothly. Let it dry out. After you have performed the feather trick, turn back to table to get tube and insert feather into it. While your back is turned, insert a short piece of feather in your mouth. Put tube up to your mouth to blow. Give a gulp and take tube away and run feather out of your mouth a couple of inches. It looks as if you have accidentally swallowed the long feather. Expert jugglers can balance tube on end of nose and blow out feather without touching tube, while tube is balancing on nose.
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Here’s what juggling legend Dick Franco shared with me about the trick.
As for the feather trick, like everything, there are a lot of elements that you learn over time that make things easier or better. For the tube, it doesn’t matter much, but I did have one that was thin wall and about 3/4 inch PVC. They make a thin wall and a thick wall PVC pipe. I think it is 3/4″, certainly not more than that. The thicker wall tubing was more durable for travel because the thin wall got bent slightly when packing but it really didn’t affect the trick. I would run a dry rag through it a bunch of times to slick up the inner surfaces and then spray a bit of silicone or car wax inside to keep it slick and smooth. The tube should be longer than the feather and feathers are different length. it’s tough to find a good feather. They all work, but some are much better than others because they fall slower and straighter. I found that a short, fat feather was best…with a straight shaft and balanced plumes. The plumes have little hairs at the edges … some more than others. The little hairs are what catch the air and make it fall at a slower rate. I stored the feather in the tube for travel and then took it out as soon as I got somewhere. I had a little wooden block with a hole in it that I would stand the feather up vertically to keep it show ready. I traveled with several feathers and always stored them vertically. Sometimes I would have to groom them with a spray bottle so they would keep their shape. over night. I’ll think of some more things, I guess I should write it all down for future reference. You could try blowing it out of the tube the other way… but it probably won’t come out. Another thing, each time you shoot the feather, moisture from your breath condenses in the tube. If you’re doing the trick in a show, it would be a good idea to have a spare tube handy as humidity might only give you one shot before the tube gets damp. If you are doing the forehead catch, you might need more than one shot to catch it successfully. In fact, missing it once or twice makes it a better trick. A short dry puff is what you want. Each feather is different so there can be some prep involved to get it to fall slower. You have to experiment with the feathers you have. These days, feathers are sold in packs…there is probably maybe only one or two decent feathers in each pack. I got mine from Busch Gardens Peacock Garden. Most of the feathers were good. I doubt that store bought would be mostly good because they sell a variety for displays. If you weight a feather, it will fall way too fast. Best way to catch it is to wrinkle your forehead and flex your knees a bit on impact or the feather will bounce off. It’s kind of the same as throwing a pencil to a forehead balance.
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We are not sure how old this trick is, but I believe that I’ve seen references to it from the early 1800s and perhaps even the 1700s. We do know that it was sold in early juggling catalogs, including the Otto Maurer Catalog from the 1890s, the Edward Van Wyck Catalog from 1900, and the Devere Juggling Catalog in the early 1900s. Therefore, it was an established juggling trick by that time. If you learn of any early references to jugglers performing this trick, please contact me and I’ll add them to this article.
David Cain
David Cain is a professional juggler, juggling historian, and the owner of the world's only juggling museum, the Museum of Juggling History. He is a Guinness world record holder and 16 time IJA gold medalist. In addition to his juggling pursuits, David is a successful composer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and singer as well as the author of twenty-six books. He and his children live in Middletown, OH (USA).