224 THE ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE 



a few minutes. An horse tied to a yew-hedge, or to a 

 faggot-stack of dead yew, shall be found dead before the 

 owner can be aware that any danger is at hand : and the 

 writer has been several times a sorrowful witness to losses 

 of this kind among his friends ; and in the island of Ely 

 had once the mortification to see nine young steers or 

 bullocks of his own all lying dead in a heap from browzing 

 a little on an hedge of yew in an old garden, into which 

 they had broken in snowy weather. Even the clippings of 

 a yew-hedge have destroyed a whole dairy of cows when 

 thrown inadvertently into a yard. And yet sheep and 

 turkies, and, as park-keepers say, deer, will crop these trees 

 with impunity. 



Some intelligent persons assert that the branches of yew, 

 while green, are not noxious ; and that they will kill only 

 when dead and withered, by lacerating the stomach ; but to 

 this assertion we cannot by any means assent, because 

 among the number of cattle that we have known fall 

 victims to this deadly food, not one has been found, when 

 it was opened, but had a lump of green yew in it's paunch. 

 True it is, that yew-trees stand for twenty years or more in 

 a field, and no bad consequences ensue : but at some time 

 or other cattle, either from wantonness when full, or from 

 hunger when empty (from both which circumstances we 

 have seen them perish), will be meddling, to their certain 

 destruction ; the yew seems to be a very improper tree for 

 a pasture-field. 



Antiquaries seem much at a loss to determine at what 

 period this tree first obtained a place in church-yards. 

 A statute passed A.D. 1307 and 35 Edward I. the title of 

 which is " Ne rector arbores in cemeterio prosternat." 

 Now if it is recollected that we seldom see any other very 

 large or ancient tree in a church-yard but yews, this 

 statute must have principally related to this species of 

 tree ; and consequently their being planted in church- 

 yards is of much more ancient date than the year 1307. 



As to the use of these trees, possibly the more respect- 

 able parishioners were buried under their shade before the 



