God Almighty’s birds

In most parts of the country martins and swallows were held to be sacred birds, and killing one was thought a greater sin than killing any other harmless bird. Children in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire all said a couplet which, Hone noted, their parents always approved if they had not taught it. Hone gives it at the end of a long account of the swallow and the puzzle of where it went in winter.