Scarcity of large Yews in Ireland 33 



' So striking is this feature, and so fixed is the 

 idea that some connection exists between these 

 yew-trees and the Pilgrim's Way, that they are 

 often said to have been planted with the express 

 object of guiding travellers along the road to 

 Canterbury. This, however, we need hardly say, 

 is a fallacy. Yews are by no ways peculiar to the 

 Pilgrim's Way, but are to be found along every 

 road in chalk districts' (p. 6). 



It is not improbable that these parts of the 

 country were at one time covered with yew-trees, 

 and that those along the ' Pilgrim's Way ' have 

 escaped destruction, and been left as guides. 



' It has been suggested, by Capt. E. R. James, 

 that the Pilgrim's Way first gave Bunyan his idea 

 of the Pilgrims Progress ' (ib.\ 



The remarkable paucity of very large trees in 

 Ireland, where the yew abounds and grows with 

 great luxuriance, may be due to two causes, viz., 

 ist, the very humid climate, causing rapid decay, 

 and, 2nd, the destruction of the woods for smelting 

 and other purposes. Thus : 'In ancient times,' 

 says Boate, 1 * and as long as the land was in full 

 possession of the Irish themselves, all Ireland was 

 full of woods on every side, as evidently appeareth 

 by the writings of Giraldus Cambrensis, who came 

 into Ireland upon the first conquest in the company 

 of Henry the Second, King of England, in the year 



1 Dr. George Boate, Ireland's Natural History ', 1758. 

 C 



