THE YEW 85 



It is not only for Easter decorations that Yew 

 boughs are utilised by the Church ; for, out of the 

 lands of Palms and Olives, the Catholic Church has to 

 make shift with Willow and Yew on Palm Sunday, so 

 that the latter tree has in many districts acquired the 

 name of " Palm," though Willows are more generally 

 so called. That staunch Protestant, William Turner, 

 need not have opened, as he does, the vials of his 

 wrath upon the Popish priests for this custom as a 

 deception, since the prayers in the mass for the day 

 expressly add the words, "and other trees," after 

 mentioning Palm and Olive. In the Churchwarden's 

 Accounts for Woodbury, Devon, in 1775, it is 

 recorded that " a Yew or Palm tree was planted in 

 the churchyard, ye south side of the church, in the 

 same place where one was blown down by the wind a 

 few days ago, this 25th of November." 



The Yew was also used in funerals a custom 

 alluded to by Shakespeare in Twelfth Night, in the 

 line 



" My shroud of white, stuck all with Yew " ; 



and Sir Thomas Browne suggested that sprigs so used 

 have taken root and grown into our churchyard trees. 

 Again, in some parts of the country corpses were 

 rubbed with an infusion of Yew leaves to preserve 

 them. 



Perhaps the best evidence, faute de mieux, to con- 

 nect the Yew with Druidic times is the fact that it is 

 particularly abundant in the churchyards of Wales 

 and the West of England. In the churchyard at 

 Mainhilad there are, for instance, twelve or thirteen 



