Dr Terry Mabbett considers the viability of the English yew, long associated with burial grounds and death, as a modern Christmas tree.

ENGLISH yew (Taxus baccata) has all the character of a commercial Christmas tree, including fern-like dark-green evergreen foliage that responds well to shearing. Needles don’t drop when the tree is cut, and it has a canopy that looks sensationally seasonal when covered in snow.

But despite yew’s multi-millennium provenance as a British native, it has been completely overlooked as a Christmas tree, and, as far as we can tell, as an indoor winter green for the pagan Yuletide celebration. As one of three conifers native to Britain (others are common juniper and Scots pine), I am potentially attracted to English yew for winter solstice celebrations and intrigued as to why the tree has been studiously avoided despite ready availability through the ages.

Forestry Journal: There is no doubting the longevity of English yew. This Ancient specimen in Hampshire pre-dates the Elizabethan mansion in the background by some 500 years.There is no doubting the longevity of English yew. This Ancient specimen in Hampshire pre-dates the Elizabethan mansion in the background by some 500 years.

If I really wanted to deck the halls with boughs of yew, I could always cut a tree from my garden which has been bequeathed by birds eating the soft and red berry-like aril complete with enclosed seed. Usual common suspects are members of the thrush family – native resident blackbird and song thrush alongside fieldfares and redwings as winter visitors from Scandinavia. In the wider environment, yew trees commonly grow under large oak trees on which the native thrush species perch and pass out yew seed as they sing.

English yew’s contribution to contemporary biodiversity is for later. Now is the time to unravel the tree’s long-standing association with death and burial grounds. Hundreds of churchyards across Britain boast yews older than the church buildings, and this is perhaps why Christianity fought shy of using yew in Christmas celebrations.

Forestry Journal: Yew tree canopies covered in snow offer a sensational seasonal scene.Yew tree canopies covered in snow offer a sensational seasonal scene.

Christmas trees are a German idea, introduced to Victorian Britain by Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld and the Queen’s consort. However, the roots of Christmas trees go back to pagan times and European tribal fascination with everlasting evergreen foliage as home to benign woodland spirits. Bringing evergreens into the home gave spirits a warm place by the fireside in winter. And a cosy place for the Lubber Fiend, or Lob Lie-By-The-Fire. The Lubber Fiend is a legendary creature of English folklore, a house spirit performing housework in exchange for a saucer of milk and a warm place by the fire. Could this be the cultural roots of children’s custom of putting out milk and cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve?

The legend lived on in the works of modern-day writers, especially in northern England, including Ammon Wrigley, author and poet of Saddleworth folklore on the Lancashire moors.

‘O warm is the ingle nook’

From ‘A December Night’ by Ammon Wrigley

However, holly was the evergreen favoured for Yuletide celebrations, with yew relegated to the pagan burial ground where it stayed throughout transition into Christianity some 2000 years ago. Exceptionally old yew trees are reckoned to pre-date Christianity, but why this aversion to yew despite its covering the landscape for thousands of years as a ubiquitous and common native tree?

Forestry Journal: Female yew tree in early autumn with fruits at different stages of development – from the acorn-like immature fruit to mature fruit with soft red aril enclosing the seed.Female yew tree in early autumn with fruits at different stages of development – from the acorn-like immature fruit to mature fruit with soft red aril enclosing the seed.

According to G.S. Boulger (Familiar Trees; circa 1900) the hard, durable and reddish wood has always been easy to recognise in peat-beds as the so-called bog yew, having originated during prehistoric times. Bog yew has been found in the peat bogs of Ireland, Scotland and Cumbria, the fens of Cambridgeshire and as submerged moor-logs at the mouth of the River Thames.

Avoidance of yew in these ancient times was not about scarcity because yew trees once covered far more of these islands than current distribution and numbers suggest. Boulger says farmers and herdsmen removed yew, which shaded crops and was potentially poisonous and frequently fatal to livestock, and it is therefore not surprising that the yew should have become less abundant in our hedgerows than it once was. Indeed, stop and think how yew is widely planted in the landscape sector for pruning, preening and shearing into mazes and topiary but absent from rural hedgerows.

Forestry Journal: Hard, durable and reddish yew wood has always been easy to recognise in peat-beds as so-called ‘bog-yew’, originating during prehistoric times.Hard, durable and reddish yew wood has always been easy to recognise in peat-beds as so-called ‘bog-yew’, originating during prehistoric times.

Most parts of the yew tree, including leaves and bark, are intrinsically toxic because of what we now know are taxine alkaloids. Indeed 50 g of yew leaves contain sufficient poison to kill an adult human. Early civilisations will have quickly discovered to their cost how yew is toxic and potentially lethal to man and beast. And this is presumably why yew was shunned in England except for its logical association with death and burial grounds.

Other factors which contribute to the doom and gloom around the yew tree are more to do with ambience in natural yew woodland, although pure yew woodland is not easy to find today. I can honestly say I have always felt uneasy inside yew woodland, or even when I stand under the branches of a single large tree. Whether this is natural, innate and instinctive or through early instruction on the malevolent folklore associated with English yew is unclear.

To this I can honestly say I don’t know. However, I have always had the same eerie and uncomfortable feelings inside elder woodland, but that started decades before I discovered elder folklore and the Elder Mother as the old, wizened witch who took revenge on those who dared to harm her elder tree. And not to forget old and hollowed out English elm trees, the favoured nesting sites for owls which are signs of sudden death in so many cultures. And of course, the elm tree’s proneness to sudden branch drop – ‘elm hateth man and waiteth’.

Close association between yews and death in our culture and folklore is confirmed by English poetry and prose, with ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ by Thomas Gray (published 1751) the obvious place to start. The exact origin is unclear, but the poem is thought to be based on the graveyard of St Giles Parish Church at Stoke Poges in South Buckinghamshire.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew tree’s shade,

Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,

Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

Not to be outdone, William Wordsworth followed up in 1803 with his poem ‘Yew Trees’, based on yews in Cumbria.

There is a Yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale,

Which to this day stands single, in the midst

Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore…….

……. This solitary tree! – a living thing

Produced too slowly ever to decay;

Despite its native status, English yew was clearly unsuitable for celebrating joyous events like winter solstice/pagan Yuletide and their extension and absorption into Christmas. However, mid-winter celebrations apart, what else is of particular interest about English yew?

Forestry Journal: I have always felt a certain degree of unease when standing under old yew trees, and the Ankerwycke Yew at Runnymede by the River Thames in Surrey was no exception.I have always felt a certain degree of unease when standing under old yew trees, and the Ankerwycke Yew at Runnymede by the River Thames in Surrey was no exception.

The tree has a reputation for slow growth, but the trunks of aged yews are disproportionately large compared with relatively scant canopies. Yew is dioecious, which means different trees bear staminate (male) and pistillate (female) flowers. Perhaps this accelerated yew’s disappearance from the ancient landscape, because if one tree were left solitary in a hedge it would be unable to reproduce via seed, irrespective of sex.

Not only berry-eating birds are attracted to ancient yew trees. Some years ago, I visited the 2,500-year-old Ankerwycke Yew at Runnymede by the River Thames in Surrey, together with an ultra-keen party of tree enthusiasts and naturalists – and perhaps even a few naturists. Pandemonium broke out when someone discovered orange-coloured pulp under the tree and claimed a rare fungal find. Excitement soon died down when the plant tissue was identified as Cucurbita pepo, the flesh of pumpkin.

It was early November and the local witches’ coven had obviously been doing what witches do on Halloween.

Before cutting down a yew tree for Christmas, I will take a closer look at the tree’s potential for poisoning. Six different taxine alkaloids have been identified from Taxus baccata. They are huge molecules with exceptionally long chemical names, but with a short and sharp metabolic effect. The taxine alkaloids are absorbed rapidly into the body from the intestine and in high enough quantities to cause death from cardiac failure, cardiac arrest or respiratory failure. Taxines are also absorbed efficiently by the skin, which means all Taxus species should be handled with care.On reflection, I don’t want a yew tree for Christmas after all. I will make do with Norway spruce or Nordmann fir. Neither tree is native, but, thanks to the renaissance of UK Christmas tree cultivation, my purchase will most likely have been grown in Great Britain or Ireland.

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