YEW TREE. 



397 



Again, for the custom of planting the Yew in church- 

 yards, Dr. Aikin thinks it probable that it was from its 

 being an evergreen, and furnishing boughs for the de- 

 coration of churches at Christmas. Yew, however, does 

 not appear to have been commonly used for that purpose. 

 In Brand's Popular Antiquities, the plants chiefly men- 

 tioned as adorninff churches at the Christmas season are 

 bay, rosemary, holly, ivy, and mistletoe. Cypress is 

 added upon one occasion ; and Mr. Brand observes, 

 " In this account, the Cypress is quite a new article; 

 indeed I should as soon have expected to have seen the 

 Yew as the Cypress used on this joyful occasion.'"* The 

 editor gives a note upon this passage, saying that Coles, 

 in his Art of Simpling, afiirms that " in some places, 

 the setting up of holly, ivy, rosemary, bays, yew, &c. 

 in churches at Christmas, is still in use;"' and that 

 Parkinson speaks of houses being adorned with box 

 and yew 



Tliis passage makes it appear that Yew was not very 

 generally used at the Christmas festival ; and had a tree 

 been planted in churchyards for that use, it would 

 more probably have been the holly, which was never 

 omitted. 



Sir Thomas Browne supposes the planting of Yews in 

 churchyards to derive its origin from ancient funeral 

 rites, being, on account of its perpetual verdure, used as 

 a symbol of the resurrection. Evelyn is of the same 

 opinion. 



Dr. Hunter thinks that the best reason to be given for 

 it is, that the branches were often carried in procession 

 on Palm Sunday instead of Palm, and gives an extract 



* Brand's Popular Antiquities, 4to. vol. i. p. 408. 



