cygnicide

The same reluctance to kill, or when killed to eat a swan, prevails in parts, if not in the whole of Connacht. I knew one man who shot a swan, and his father would not allow it to be eaten. Another man assured me he had once shot one, and if he lived for a thousand years he never would do so again. I have never tried the experiment myself, but if it be true that / —facinus qui cogitat ullum / Facti crimen habet— / I should be most certainly amenable to all the supernatural penalties of cygnicide; but though I have fulfilled the Highland saying, seilgire thu nuair mharbhas tu gé corr agus crotach, I have hitherto found the eala one too many for me!