Longevity The yew can reach at least 600 years of age, but ages are often overestimated. Ten yews in Britain are believed to predate the 10th century. The potential age of yews is impossible to determine accurately and is subject to much dispute. There is rarely any wood as old as the entire tree, while the boughs themselves often become hollow with age, making
ring counts impossible. Growth rates and archaeological work of surrounding structures suggest the oldest yews, such as the
Fortingall Yew in
Perthshire, Scotland, may be 2,000 years old or more, placing them among the oldest plants in Europe. The Fortingall Yew has one of the largest recorded trunk girths in Britain, reportedly in the 18th century. The
Llangernyw Yew in
Clwyd, Wales, at another early saint site, is some 4,000–5,000 years old according to an investigation led by the botanist
David Bellamy, who carbon-dated a yew in
Tisbury, Wiltshire at around 4,000 years old. The
Ankerwycke Yew is an ancient yew tree close to the ruins of
St Mary's Priory, the site of a
Benedictine nunnery built in the 12th century, near
Wraysbury in
Berkshire, England. It is a
male tree with a girth of at 0.3 metres. The tree is at least 1,400 years old, and could be as old as 2,500 years. The
Balderschwang Yew, estimated to be 600 to 1,000 years old, may be the oldest tree in Germany. The
Caesarsboom, Caesar's Tree in
Lo, Belgium, is thought to be over 2,000 years old. The
Florence Court Yew in
County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland is the oldest tree of the Irish Yew cultivar, (
Taxus baccata 'Fastigiata'). The cultivar has become ubiquitous in cemeteries across the world, and it is believed that all known examples are from cuttings from this tree. The
Bermiego Yew in
Asturias, Spain stands tall with a trunk diameter of and a crown diameter of . It was declared a Natural Monument in 1995 by the Asturian government and is protected by the Plan of Natural Resources. The Borrowdale Yews were described by
William Wordsworth in his 1815 poem "Yew Trees", including the lines: File:Texu.jpg|The
Bermiego Yew,Asturias, Spain File:The_Llangernyw_yew.jpg|The
Llangernyw Yew,Conwy, Wales File:If_Estry.jpg|The
Estry Yew,Normandy, France File:Ankerwyke-yew.jpg|The
Ankerwycke Yew,Berkshire, England File:Alte Eibe in Balderschwang, Blick von Nord-Westen.jpg|The
Balderschwang Yew,Bavaria, Germany
Alphabets In the
Anglo-Saxon futhark, the thirteenth
rune had a value that was possibly
eu, and which was formerly taken to represent Old English
eo, eow, iw meaning "yew". The
Runic Poem calls it
eoh, while the
Codex Salisburgensis and
Isruna Tracts name it
ih. In the
Crann Ogham, a variation on the ancient Irish
Ogham alphabet which consists of a list of trees, "yew" is the last in the main list of 20 trees, primarily symbolizing death. As the ancient Celts also believed in the
transmigration of the soul, there is a secondary meaning of the eternal soul that survives death to be reborn in a new form.
Proto-Celtic * is the source of several placenames, but its association with the yew is disputed.), as well as
Scottish Gaelic . Thus,
Newry, Northern Ireland is an anglicization of , an oblique form of , which could mean "the grove of yew trees".
York () is derived from the
Brittonic name (
Latinised variously as , , from the Proto-Celtic. There is according to the scholar of English
Ralph Elliott, "strong evidence" that the yew was important to the ancient Celtic peoples of Western Europe, perhaps having come to symbolise immortality through being evergreen. On the
Iberian Peninsula, a deity
Eburianus is named on a tombstone in
Segovia, with related placenames like Ebura, and the
Gallic peoples Eburanci,
Eburones, and
Eburovices. The Roman historians
Lucius Annaeus Florus and
Orosius record that in the
Cantabrian Wars, the besieged people at
Mons Medullius killed themselves the same way. The structures translated as "booths" or "temples", Latin
fana, mentioned by Roman historians such as
Pliny the Elder, may have been hollow trees or structures of yew branches. File:Laneast - Celtic cross and yew - geograph.org.uk - 511708.jpg|Scholars have proposed that the yew was important to Celtic peoples. File:Peter Schrijver's reconstruction of Celtic etymology of yew.svg|Diagram of
Peter Schrijver's reconstruction of the etymologyof the Celtic words for "yew" suggested that the
sacred tree at the
Temple at Uppsala was a yew.
Churchyards The yew is traditionally and regularly found in
churchyards in England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and
Normandy in Northern France. Some examples can be found in
La Haye-de-Routot or
La Lande-Patry. It is said up to 40 people could stand inside one of the La-Haye-de-Routot yew trees, and the
Le Ménil-Ciboult yew is probably the largest, with a girth of 13 m. File:LaHayeDeRoutotIf1 (cleaned).JPG|Norman chapel in a yew tree, Church of Notre-Dame,
La Haye-de-Routot, France File:Farnborough, St Giles the Abbot, yew tree and bench in the churchyard - geograph.org.uk - 3394871.jpg|Yew tree and bench,St Giles the Abbot,
Farnborough, Hampshire File:Churchyard yew, Llanveynoe, Herefordshire - geograph.org.uk - 7226774.jpg|Churchyard yew,
Llanveynoe,
Herefordshire St Edwards Church - Stow on th Wold.jpg|Yews framing door of
St Edward's Church,Stow-on-the-Wold Multiple explanations for the association with churchyards have been proposed. Some Anglo-Saxon churches may have been built intentionally on "places of assembly, not improbably sites of earlier pagan
fanes where ritual and yew magic went hand in hand." Some yews existed before their churches, as preachers held services beneath them when churches were unavailable. The ability of their branches to root and sprout anew after touching the ground may have caused yews to become symbols of death, rebirth, and therefore immortality. Another explanation is that yews were planted to discourage farmers and drovers from letting animals wander onto the burial grounds, the poisonous foliage being the disincentive. A further possible reason is that fronds and branches of yew were often used as a substitute for palms on
Palm Sunday. == See also ==