Quill

A writing pen cut from the moulted flight feather, usually a primary wing feather, of a large bird, its hollow shaft serving as a reservoir that feeds ink to a nib cut into the tip by capillary action through a thin slit, dipped again in an inkwell once its small store of ink runs out, in the same way as a reed pen or a dip pen. Before use, the feather's shaft is cured by drying it in air, hot sand or ashes to harden it, and a pen knife or other sharp blade cuts and shapes its writing point. The quill grew out of the earlier reed pen, itself of Egyptian origin, and was the primary tool for writing with ink from around the sixth century into the nineteenth, used to write documents including the Magna Carta and the United States Declaration of Independence; it declined once mass-produced steel pens became available in Great Britain after the 1820s. Quills are still cut and used today by a small number of scribes and calligraphers who value the fine, responsive line a well-cut goose quill can make.