DAYS OF THE EVERGREEN 



269 



choice of the yew for a graveyard tree. Though yew boughs 

 do not glitter cheerfully like those of the holly, and its berries 

 are far less bright, a yew on a winter day has an even more 

 striking suggestion of unconquerable vitality. The life which 

 its dark boughs and massive trunks suggest may be sombre, 

 but it is tremendously stubborn and enduring. The slow 

 growth and great longevity of the yew add to the same 

 impression. Very probably it was life and not death that 



YEW IN SELBORNE CHURCHYARD 



yews suggested to our unknown forerunners who first planted 

 them by their dead ; for the vitality of an old yew growing 

 away from churchyards on the chalk hillside is far more 

 conspicuous than its gloom. Yews are sometimes said to 

 have been planted in churchyards to provide a parish supply 

 of wood for bows. If this was ever an object it was probably 

 a subsequent and additional one ; the original association 

 with the spot seems far more likely to have been based on its 

 evergreen symbolism. 



The great age often reached by the yew is closely con- 



