THE COMMON YEW. 297 



The wood of the Yew is exceedingly hard and close-grained, of a 

 beautiful reddish-brown, susceptible of a high polish, and very durable, 

 tough, and elastic — qualities that were turned to account during many 

 centuries in the making of bows used in warfare 'and the chase, and 

 in modern times for archery. Yew wood was also formerly much used 

 in the manufacture of articles of domestic furniture, many antique and 

 curious specimens of which are still preserved in museums, &c. The 

 spray and foliage of the Yew are poisonous to cattle. The berries are 

 glutinous, and have a sweet taste ; they are often eaten by children 

 without being followed by harmful consequences. The kernel, too, is 

 edible, and has a bitter flavour not unlike that of the seeds of the 

 Stone Pine (Pinus pinea). 



The association of the Yew with religion and places of worship is 

 of very ancient date. Many hypotheses have been brought forward 

 explanatory of the cause of the selection of this tree for planting in 

 proximity to churches and abbeys, or, perhaps, it would be more correct 

 to say, the building of churches and abbeys in proximity to large and 

 full grown Yews; for it is indisputable that the finest and most 

 venerable trees at present existing in Britain are to be found in 

 churchyards, and in the vicinity of old priories and abbeys, but it is by 

 no means certain whether in all cases, or even in the majority of them, 

 the Yews were planted subsequent to the building of the edifice, or 

 the edifice erected near the spot where the Yews were already standing.* 

 The true cause of the association, in this country at least, is not, we 

 think, difficult to be found — this is in the character and habit of the 

 tree itself. There is no other native evergreen tree at all to be com- 

 pared with the Yew as regards its foliage, its massive sombre aspect, 

 and its longevity, and hence the Yew ■vsould be ■naturally selected to 

 represent the feelings, the sentiments, and the hopes associated with 

 burial-grounds and in connection with places of worship where senti- 

 ments and feelings are most likely to seek expression by visible 

 representatives or enduring monuments. The feeling of Hope lives in 

 its evergreen foliage; Sorrow is remembered in its dark and sombre 

 shade, and Veneration is awakened in its aged aspect. It may be 

 safely assumed from the known antiquity of many Yews still standing 

 in churchyards and the like places, that the association of the Yew 

 with religion must be of very ancient origin; and the probability is 

 very great that it took its rise at an epoch anterior to the introduction 

 of Christianity into Britain. 



Among the ancient Yews still existing, that are, or have been asso- 

 ciated with sacred edifices, the following are celebrated : — 



* There was a very ancient Yew in the churchyard of Kirkheating, near Huddersfield. 

 The inhabitants of the village have a, tradition that the church (which dates before 1245) 

 was built to the tree, and not the tree planted to the church. It was living in 1864, but 

 is now dead. — G. Roberts, in Science Gossip, 1875, p. 70. 



