Yew, the Death Tree

Yew at Waverley Abbey, Farnham, Surrey

The Yew

The Yew, Taxus baccata, is one of only three coniferous species (trees that bear cones and needles instead of leaves) which are native to the British isles, the others being the Scots Pine, Pinus sylvestris, and the Juniper, Juniperus communis.

The ‘Death tree’

It is most famously found in the country’s graveyards and the grounds of country houses although it grows freely in the wild, according to the British poet and novelist Robert Graves, author of the ‘I Claudius’ novels, the yew is the “death tree in all European countries”, being closely entwined with European folk-lore and mythology. It is also the original tree of the pagan’s winter festival of Yule, which of course is today’s Christmas, although the evergreen leaves and red berries of the Holly now take its place in our modern traditions.

At Stonyhurst College, in the Ribble valley, a path lined with Yew trees called the ‘dark walk’ was made the setting for Sir Charles Baskerville’s grisly death in the novel ‘The Hounds of the Baskerville’s’, which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote in the 1800’s whilst he was reading medicine there.

The ‘Dark Walk’ at Stonyhurst College in the Ribble Valley

There are several theories as to why the Yew is regarded in such a deep, dark manner, one is that its leaves, berries and bark can be lethally poisonous, Shakespeare was familiar with this when he had Macbeth concoct a poisonous brew, the ingredients of which included “slips of yew, silver’d in the moon’s eclipse”.

Perhaps this is one reason why the tree is associated with death, this perception cannot help but be reinforced by the fact that are so often found in graveyards, and beside churches, particularly at pre-Christian religious sites. Another reason is possibly due to the way that the drooping branches of old Yew trees will root and form new trunks wherever they touch the ground, symbolising death and rebirth, which is the main theme of the Celtic mythologies.

1000 yr old Yew at Kelburn Castle, North Ayrshire, Scotland

Outliving whole civilisations

Yew trees are one of our longest lived tree species, although it is hard to age them through the traditional ring counting method as they tend to rot from the middle outwards. Some will have been alive long enough to see the Pictish, Pagan, Celtic and Roman civilisations come and go, a Yew at St Cynog’s Church near Swansea in Wales is claimed to be more than 5,000 years old, and the Fortinghall Yew in Glen Lyon in the centre of Scotland could be anything from 2000 to 9000 years old!

One of several legends told about the Fortingall Yew is of how Pontius Pilate, fifth governor of the Roman province of Judaea, who infamously presided over the trial of Jesus, later ordering his crucifixion, was born under this very tree whilst his father was on a diplomatic mission to talk with a Pictish king. This would make it over 2000 years old at the least, and might also explain why the Yew lost favour as a symbol of Christmas! The Fortingall yew has, rather sadly, been vandalised by tourists removing pieces of bark so has been given only 50 more years of life.

The Fortingall Yew

Longbows, furniture and drugs

The Yew was commonly grown near to human settlements as its timber is immensely useful, although it is technically a ‘softwood’ it grows very, slowly, which gives the wood great strength. The thin, springy branches of the Yew were once used in medieval times to make extraordinarily powerful longbows, in the Hundred Years War, which was a series of armed conflicts between the kingdoms of England and France during the Late Middle Ages, stretching from about 1347 to 1453, the English used these to devastating effect.

Earlier in the 1300’s during the battle of Bannockburn, Blàr Allt nam Bànag, the Scottish army, fighting for Scottish independence, were ordered by Robert the Bruce to make longbows from the sacred Yews at Ardchattan Priory in Argyll. Many army’s throughout history have known of the use of the Yew for war, even the scientific name of the Yew; Taxus, comes from the name for a type of javelin which was made from it’s wood.

Nowadays the wood is used for making veneers and furniture, it is also popular in landscape gardening as it can tolerate repeated clipping and shaping. Its human uses have been somewhat limited by its toxicity although a homoeopathic tincture can be made from the young shoots, the flesh of the berries are also used by herbalists to treat illnesses including cystitis and neuralgia, recently it has been discovered that the leaves and bark contain compounds called taxanes, which have been used to develop a drug for the treatment for some forms of cancer, which has the brand name of Taxol.

An Aril, the fruit of the Yew

Poison for man, food for beast

Although every part of the tree is poisonous to humans and cattle other beasts find it quite palatable, Badgers will eat the fruits, called ‘arils’, and pass the seeds intact, other mammals such as Squirrels, Deer and Rabbits can also eat these fruits. Birds eat the berries in their hundreds, with the Yew sometimes being one of few sources of winter fuel for migrating species such as the Blackbird, Thrush and Fieldfare.

The larvae of some insects, including the Tortrix moth and Satin Beauty moth, will graze on Yew needles and the dense, evergreen foliage of the Yew coupled with its thick bark full of nooks and crevices make it very attractive to insects looking for somewhere dry and safe to hibernate, in spring the canopy of the Yew is perfect for nesting birds too, in a way this completes the symbolic life/death cycle of the Yew perfectly.

Satin Beauty

A B-H