CHURCHYARD YEWS 255 



concomitances of death chambers and burial cere- 

 monies. 



Lay a garland on my hearse, 

 Of the dismal Yew, 



is the refrain of Aspasia's song in The Maid's 

 Tragedy (Beaumont and Fletcher). And if we 

 were to touch upon a more unpleasant topic of 

 their fame, it would be to say that the prosperity 

 of their growth and that of the community around 

 were considered to be vastly benefited by their 

 presence in churchyards. It was asserted that they 

 attracted and absorbed the deadly exhalations and 

 gases of the graveyard, those luminous phenomena 

 that so often terrified old women and children — and 

 doubtless, for the matter of that, many a member 

 of the other sex on a night return journey from the 

 village alehouse — when they assumed the shape of 

 Jack-o'-lantern and Will-of-the-wisp, and haunted 

 the surroundings. 



To descend to a more prosaic interpretation of 

 their occupation of these sites. There is a story 

 told of a gunner on board a ship, who was summoned 

 into the presence of his superior officer to give ex- 

 planation of his failure to fire a salute. His apology 

 was to the effect that there were countless reasons, 

 but the first was all-sufficient ; he had no gunpowder. 

 There may be countless reasons for planting Yews 

 in churchyards, but one should suffice for most, and 

 it is this, that a poisonous tree which is in requirement 

 for national purposes is best planted out of reach 

 of any opportunity to destroy animal life, which is 

 also necessary for national purposes. 



But all these conjectured problems we must here 

 leave to the further consideration of those actuated 

 by a desire to ransack the inner workings of the 

 minds of planting men, who lived before the age of 

 gunpowder and put them there. 



