THE YEW. 
Taunus bacca’ta L. 
For botanist, artist, poet, or moralist, few trees have 
so unique an interest-as the Yew. Its very 
name is mysterious in its simple brevity, and has 
been traced back to the sacred word MM’, Jehovah, 
the Immortal. In Latin and Portuguese, va; in 
Old German, Jwa; in Welsh, yw; in Anglo-Saxon, 
cow; in Old English, iw, ew, ewe, eugh, and uhe ; 
in French, if; in Swedish, id; and in modern 
German, Eibe, “we find,” says Dr. Prior, “ the Yew 
so inextricably mixed up with the Ivy that, dis- 
similar as are the two trees, there can be no doubt 
that these names are in their origin identical.” 
In the discussions as to the reasons for its fre- 
quent presence in our churchyards several facts are 
commonly overlooked: first, for example, that the 
species is an indigenous one, and was formerly un- 
doubtedly far more abundant in Britain and other 
parts of Europe than at present; secondly, that the 
trees may be older than the churches, and even than 
Christianity itself; and thirdly, that in most cases 
the venerable Yew is on the south or south-west side 
of the church. 
Its hard, durable, reddish wood presents 
characters that enable us readily to recognise it 
in the peat-beds of prehistoric times. In the 
bogs of Ireland, Scotland, and Cumberland, in the 
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