THE YEW 83 
It is not only for Easter decorations that Yew 
boughs are utilised by the Church; for, out of the 
lands of Palms and Olives, the Catholic Church has to 
make shift with Willow and Yew on Palm Sunday, so 
that the latter tree has in many districts acquired thé 
name of “Palm,” though Willows are more generally 
so called. That staunch Protestant, William Turner, 
need not have opened, as he does, the vials of his 
wrath upon the Popish priests for this custom as a 
‘deception, since the prayers in the mass for the day 
expressly add the words, “and other trees,” after 
mentioning Palm and Olive. In the Churchwarden’s 
Accounts for Woodbury, Devon, in 1775, it is 
recorded that “a Yew or Palm tree was planted in 
the churchyard, ye south side of the church, in the 
same place where one was blown down by the wind a 
few days ago, this 25th of November.” 
The Yew was also used in funevals—a custom 
alluded to by Shakespeare in Twelfth Night, in the 
line— . 
“My shroud of white, stuck all with Yew”; 
and Sir Thomas Browne suggested that sprigs so used 
have taken root and grown into our churchyard trees. 
Again, in some parts of the country corpses were 
rubbed with an infusion of Yew leaves to preserve 
them. 
Perhaps the best evidence, faute de mieux, to con- 
-nect the Yew with Druidic times is the fact that it is 
particularly abundant in the churchyards of Wales 
and the West of England. In the churchyard at 
Mamhilad there are, for instance, twelve or thirteen 
