24 Yew-Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



uncommon to speak of the ' vine of the grape 

 wine,' meaning the wine of the grape vine. An 

 old quotation given in Notes and Qtieries} attached 

 to a commission, shows this spelHng : * I find the 

 following, dated March lo, 1662: — "Nottingham. 

 An Inventory of the Goods and Chattells of S' Jno 

 Byron the elder, Knight, taken at Mansfyld. 



' Item four Spanish viewe bowes w'^ a quiver and 

 arrowes at . . . . . . xP " ' 



Another writer speaks of vew being common in 

 the Craven district. This again is evidently de- 

 pendent on y being mistaken for v. 



An improvement suggests itself to some one, 

 Vew is a prospect, which is not spelt without an i. 

 Hence 'the yews' in Worsborough Dale become 

 ' the views ' ! Halliwell in his Diet of archaic and 

 proof words gives yet another form, vewe, which 

 he says is a Cheshire word." 



Still another writer says there is a farm in South 

 Shropshire named Yeo, which is always pronounced 

 View by the people of the neighbourhood. 



Epithets. — From the earliest times the epithets 

 and adjectives used in connection with the yew 

 nearly all link it with sorrow or death ; and most 

 of those of modern date are similar in character, or 

 else mere translations. Thus we find such terms as 

 these constantly employed : — melancholy, funereal^ 

 7nourner, black, dark, sable, stubborn, sullen, tough, 



1 1st Ser. vi. 10. - G. F. R. B., 1884, 6th Ser. vol. ix. 



