210 
ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 
though eaten in a very small quantity, are certain death to horses and 
cows, and that in a few minutes. An horse tied to a yew-hedge, or to 
a faggot-stack of dead yew, shall be found dead before the owner can be 
aware that any danger is at hand ; and the writer has been several 
times a sorrowful witness to losses of this kind among his friends ; 
and in the island of Ely had once the mortification to see nine young 
steers or bullocks of his own all lying dead in an heap from browsing a 
little on an hedge of yew in an old garden, into which they had broken 
in snowy weather. Even the clippings of a yew hedge have destroyed 
a whole dairy of cows when thrown inadvertently into a yard. And yet 
sheep and turkeys, and, as park-keepers say, deer will crop these trees 
with impunity. 
Some intelligent persons assert that the branches of yew, while green, 
are not noxious ; and that they will kill only when dead and withered, 
by lacerating the stomach ; but to this assertion we cannot by any 
means assent, because, among the number of cattle that we have 
known fall victims to this deadly food, not one has been found, when 
it was opened, but had a lump of green yew in its paunch. True it is, 
that yew-trees stand for twenty-years or more in a field, and no bad 
consequences ensue ; but at some time or other cattle, either from 
wantonness when full, or from hunger when empty (from both which 
circumstances we have seen them perish), will be meddling, to their 
certain destruction ; the yew seems to be a very improper tree for a 
pasture-field. 
Antiquaries seem much at a loss to determine at what period this 
tree first obtained a place in church-yards. A statute passed A.D. 1307 
and 35 Edward I. the title of which is " JSTe rector arbores in cemeterio 
prosternat." Now if it is recollected that we seldom see any other very 
large or ancient tree in a churchyard but yews, this statute must have 
principally related to this species of tree ; and consequently their 
being planted in churchyards is of much more ancient date than the 
year 1307. 
As to the use of these trees, possibly the more respectable parishioners 
were buried under their shade before the improper custom was intro- 
duced of burying within the body of the church, where the living are to 
assemble. Deborah, Kebekah's nurse,^ was buried under an oak ; the 
most honourable place of interment probably next to the cave of 
Machpelah,f which seems to have been appropriated to the remains 
of the patriarchal family alone. 
The farther use of the yew-trees might be as a screen to churches, by 
their thick foliage, from the violence of winds ; perhaps also for the 
purpose of archery, the best long bows being made of that material ; 
and we do not hear that they are planted in the churchyards of other 
parts of Europe, where long bows were not so much in use. They might 
also be placed as a shelter to the congregation assembling before the 
church doors were opened, and as an emblem of mortality by their 
funereal appearance. In the south of England every churchyard almost 
has its tree, and some two ; but in the north, we understand, few are 
to be found. 
* Gen. XXXV. 8. t Gen. xxiii. 9 
