OLD YEW-TREES. 187 
with the soil; and on measuring the dark wooden 
abyss within, it was found to be eighty feet in 
circumference. Supposing that the trunk had 
been solid, a table cut out of its trunk near the 
ground would have measured at least thirty-five 
feet across, and would have comfortably dined, 
allowing two feet to each person, upwards of fifty 
people. Altogether the tree covered a space of 
five hundred square feet. This tree may possibly 
be about two thousand years old! 
The mournful Yew-tree is also famous for 
its great age. ‘* Indeed,” says Mr. Strutt in his 
work on the Forest Trees of Britain, ‘‘it can 
scarcely ever be said to die, new shoots perpetu- 
ally springing out from the old and withered 
trunk.” The Yew-trees at Fountains Abbey near 
Ripon, are at least seven hundred years old, 
probably several centuries older. For we read 
that when the monks were waiting the comple- 
tion of the building of the abbey, they took 
shelter under these Yew-trees, and there re- 
mained protected only by their dense foliage 
from storm and rain until the monastery was 
completed, when they, probably with no great 
reluctance, quitted the shelter of the trees for 
