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valley, stood an aged elm, among the ample branches of 

 which they erected a straw roof, and this was their only 

 shelter for some time. But at length the rain fell fast, 

 and the wind rose high, and they were constrained to 

 quit the shelter of the elm for that of seven stately yew- 

 trees, which grew on the south side of the valley, where 

 a splendid abbey afterwards arose. These trees were of 

 extraordinary size, for the trunk of one of them measured 

 twenty-six feet in circumference, at the height of three 

 feet above the root. Neither history nor tradition have 

 preserved the knowledge of that period when they first 

 arose from out the ground. Ages may have passed 

 since, and countries rose and waned. The yew-trees of 

 Skelldale may have continued growing even from the 

 brilliant periods of Thebes and Memphis, when Phoenician 

 barks traded to the Isle of Tin, and all around them was 

 one wild impenetrable forest. But the yew-trees were 

 now in their prime, and beneath them the monks took 

 shelter by night and by day, from the rain and snow, 

 and the cold east wind, that swept moaning through the 

 valley. Thus they lived, drinking at the stream when 

 thirsty, and allaying their hunger with the bread which 

 their archbishop sent them from time to time. When 

 the snow melted from the branches of the sheltering 

 trees, and the cold east wind was still when the delicate 

 yellow blossoms of the yew varied its dark funereal 

 branches, and bees came humming to gather in the 

 pollen, they cleared a small spot of ground to serve them 



