The original painting was inspired by a variation of the story of The Swan Maiden: "One day a fisherman was resting on the bank in the sunshine when he saw a brightly glistening white robe lying before him, delicate and translucent and entirely woven from feathers. At the place where the shoulders would fit on the wonderful robe there hung two wings. As he picked up the robe a beautiful girl appeared before him and demanded the return of her robe. The girl was a heavenly goddess, and she would have to remain miserably on earth as long as she did not have her feathery robe, that she had taken off while bathing, and which had thus wrongly come into his hands. Moved by compassion, the fisherman said, "Very well, I will give your robe back to you, if in return you will dance the heavenly dance for me with which you daughters of heaven soar through the clouds." The maiden agreed. Thereupon Hakurioo handed her the feathery robe. She immediately put it on and rose into air.