Common House Martin - in Literature and Culture

In Literature and Culture

This species lacks the wealth of literary references associated with its relative, the Barn Swallow, although it is possible that some of the older mentions for that bird might equally well refer to the House Martin. William Shakespeare was clearly describing the House Martin when Banquo brings the nests and birds to the attention of Duncan at Macbeth's castle, Inverness:

"This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve
By his loved mansionry that the heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here. No jutty, frieze,
Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird
Hath made his pendant bed and procreant cradle;
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed
The air is delicate." (Macbeth, Act I, scene VI).

There are old legends, with no basis in fact, that House Martins would wall-up House Sparrows by closing the entrance of the mud nest with the intruder inside, or that they would gather en masse to kill a Sparrow.

The martlet, often believed to refer to the House Martin or swallow, was a heraldic bird with short tufts of feathers in the place of legs. It was the cadency mark of the fourth son of a family, and features in many coats of arms, including the Plantagenets.