The players of the Barber Shop Cittern actually used starling feathers, with the pointed end being pushed in hard beneath the fingernails so they might brush the strings with the soft ends. This being 17th century London, infection was common despite the liberal use of antiseptics with many players losing fingers, hands, arms, and in many cases lives in consequence of their somewhat perverse craft. It was the fashion for a time for many non-musical dilettantes to push feathers beneath their fingernails so as to impress the ladies that they too were musicianers. Seems this also enhanced a ladies pleasure in the bedroom (or more likely the back alley) though not without further risk of infection, which was pretty much par for the course in 17th century London.

Happily, the tradition of Barber Shop Citterns still exists in the Lancastrian towns of Preston (latterly a city), Blackpool and Lancaster, though these days the players use sellotape (that Durex to you, WAV) to affix the feathers to their finger tips. It is thrilling to hear their repertoires of Traditional English Folk Songs being self-accompanied by lustrous chordal polyphonies as they have been since the 16th century. This is facilitated by the Barber Shop Cittern's re-entrant tuning, similar to many modern 5-string banjo and ukulele tunings enabling chords to be played easily so the performer might concentrate on their singing.         

It is interesting to ponder the etymology of the word Cittern with respect of its place as an instrument of English Nationalism. Methinks if we removed all things & peoples of Foreign Origin from England there'd be little & no-one left.