YEW TREE. 



407 



six feet round the largest part of the trunk. We will 

 pass on to a few of less common magnitude. 



Mr. Pennant mentions one in Fotherin2:al church- 

 yard, in the Elighlands, the ruins of which measured 

 fifty-six feet and a half in circumference. Mr. Evelyn 

 speaks of one in the churchyard of Crowhurst, in 

 Surrey, ten yards in circumference ; and of another, a 

 superannuated Yew tree in Braburne churchyard in 

 Kent, measuring fifty-eight feet, and eleven inches 

 round ; giving a diameter of about six yards and a half. 



This author tells an odd story, quoted from Cam- 

 den, relating to the Yew tree, and the origin of the name 

 of Hahfax, that may not be uninteresting. 



" One thing more, while I am speaking of this tree : 

 It reminds me of that very odd story I find related by 

 Mr. Camden, of a certain amorous clergyman, that falling 

 in love with a pretty maid, who refused his addresses, 

 cut off her head.., which being hung upon a Yew^ tree till 

 it was quite decayed, the tree w^as reputed as sacred, not 

 only while the virgin's head hung on it, but as long as 

 the tree itself lasted : to which the people went in pil- 

 grimage, plucking and bearing away branches of it, as an 

 holy rehque, w hilst there remained any of the trunk ; 

 persuading themselves that those small veins and fila- 

 ments, resembhng hairs, between the bark and body of 

 the tree, were the hairs of the virgin. But what is yet 

 stranger, the resort to this place, then called Houton, a 

 despicable villag'e, occasioned the building of the now 

 famous town of Halifax in Yorkshire, w-hich imports 

 holy hair."^ 



AVordsworth gives an admirable description of some 

 Yews of large size, in which he mentions the extreme 

 slowness of their growth : 



