CONIFERS. 283 



May meet at nooiitiilo, 



There to celebrate, 



As in a natural temple seattcr'tl o'er 



With altars undisturbed of mossy stone, 



United worship." 



There does not appear to be any mythological legend connected with the yew. It 

 is said in Lempriere's "Dictionary" that Smilax wa.s metamori)h.)sed into a yew ; 

 but Ovid simply says that she and her lover Crocus were changed into two flowerH! 

 Loudon suggests that probably the mistake aro.se from Dioscorides and some other of 

 the ancient botanists having called the yew Smilax. Camden relates a legend of a 

 priest in Yorkshire who, having murdered a virgin who refused to listen to hi.s 

 addresses, cut off her head, and hid it in a yew tree. The tree from thenceforth 

 became holy, and people made pilgrimages to visit it, plucking and bearing away 

 branches of it, believing that the small veins and filaments resembling Imirn, whicli 

 they found between the bark and wood of the tree, were the hairs of the virgin. 

 Hence the name of the village which was then called Ilouton was changed into 

 Halifax, wliich signifies holy hair, and the wealth brought by the pilgrims ena])led 

 tlie inhabitants to build on its site the now famous town of that name. The yew is 

 the badge of the Highland clan Fraser. 



The yew trees of Fountains Abbey, in Yorkshire, are well known. This abbey 

 was founded in 1132, by Thurston, Archbishop of York, for certain monks who 

 adopted the severe discipline of St. Bernard. In the Royal Society is preserved a 

 history of the foundation of this abbey as given by a monk of the period. Ho 

 describes the locality as a spot of ground that had never been inhabited unless by 

 wild beasts; being overgrown with wood and brambles, l}'ing between two steep liilh 

 and rocks covered with wood on all sides, more proper for a retreat for wild beasts 

 than the human species. There stood a large elm tree in the midst of the valo, on 

 the lower branches of wliich the monks put some thatch and straw ; and under that 

 they lay, ate, and prayed, the bishop for a time supplj'ing them with bread, and the 

 rivulet with drink. But it is supposed that they soon changed the shelter of their 

 elm for that of seven yew trees, growing on the declivity of the hill on the south side 

 of the abbey, all standing in 1658, excepting the largest, which was blown down about 

 the middle of the fifteenth century. These yews were then of extraordinarj- size, the 

 trunk of one of them twenty-six feet six inches in circumference at three feet from 

 the ground, and they stood so near each other as to form a cover almost equal to a 

 thatched roof. Under these trees the monks resided till they had built their 

 monastery. 



The name of Fountains Abbey is derived by some from Fountaincs, in Burgundy, 

 the birthplace of St. Bernard ; and by others from the word sl-ell, which (signifying 

 a fountam) was written in Latin by the monks fontihiis ; and thence corrupted into 

 the present name. In 1837 one of these trees existed, and was sketched by an artist; 

 it must then have been upwards of 800 years old. 



The Fortingal Yew, in a churchyard amongst the Grampians, is of unkniown ago, 

 and has long been a mere shell, forming an arch through which the funeral procession.'* 

 of the Highlanders were accustomed to pass. This tree has been con.siderably 

 destroyed by the depredations of visitors, but is now secured by an iron railing. It 

 is probable that it was a flourishing tree at the beginning of the Christian ei-a, and 

 may yet sur^ave for centuries to come. 



A large yew hedge existed in the Botanic Gardens at Oxford, which was rootod up 



CO 2 



