yew. 888 



From what we learn respecting the age of 

 these trees in general, they appear to have 

 been planted about the time of the conquest, 

 1066 ; and the same custom seems to have 

 been attended to in Normandy at that period, 

 as Bernardin de Saint Pierre says, " I have 

 seen in Lower Normandy, in a village church- 

 yard, an aged yew planted in the time of 

 William the Conqueror ; it is still crowned 

 with verdure, though its trunk cavernous, 

 and through and through to the day, resem- 

 bles the staves of an old cask." 



That our ancestors relied on the yew-tree 

 as a basis of their strength, in the same man- 

 ner as we now rest on the oak for defence, is 

 too well authenticated to admit a doubt. 

 " Of it," says Mr. Gilpin, " The old English 

 yeoman made his long-bow, which he vaunt- 

 ed, nobody but an Englishman could bend. 

 In shooting he did not, as in other nations, 

 keep his left hand steady, and draw his bow 

 with his right : but keeping his right at rest 

 upon the nerve, he pressed the whole weight 

 of his body into the horns of his bow. Hence 

 arose the English phrase of bending a boic ; 

 and the French of drawing one." 



In the days of archery, England could not 

 supply its bowyers with a sufficient quantity 

 of yew, and they were obliged by statute to 



