Somersetshire," tells us that it was usual for mourners to carry branches or twigs of it in solemn procession to the grave, and afterwards to deposit them therein under the bodies of their departed friends. But it was also the most important of our indigenous evergreen trees; and evergreen foliage is a type of immortality. This characteristic of the yew would not be overlooked by those who, having no other books, read the book of nature the more studiously. Moreover, it is by very far the longest lived of all our trees. Some live still YEW TREES IN SEDBERGH CHURCHYARD, YORKSHIRE. which have lived already 1800 years. Why, a tree of that age-and they probably abounded in the primeval forests of the chalk downs, where they are still to be seen in every hedge-row-a tree of that age DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. 253 in British times must have dated back from near the Flood. To British minds such trees must have seemed deathless. The poetic half-barbarian mind would see in a tree which lived on age after age, keeping its foliage ever green, the fittest symbol, below the stars, of Immortality. But we have said its most obvious symbolism was funereal—a symbol of Death. The two meanings are not opposed. On the contrary, the subtle combination of the two ideas in one symbol makes it the more suitable for conveying the great doctrine of all religions—the general truth we are in search of for the solution of our problem-an immortality beyond death. But the yew has still another remarkable characteristic, not likely to have escaped such a close observer of nature as a half-barbarous man always is. The yew decays in the middle, and the weight of its massive limbs, laden with dense foliage, rends the thin shell and makes it gape in great rents which disclose the hollowness within. But then the sap exuding from the rent hardens into a layer of new wood and slowly grows and grows until it contracts, and in some cases closes up the rent. There is a vast tree at Crowhurst, in Sussex, in which this phenomenon is very clearly visible; and we are credibly assured that, while forty years ago the boys used to creep into the hollow trunk of the churchyard yew at Stouting, in Kent, now the opening is closed up in such a way as to look as if the whole interior had been filled up solid with new wood. This apparent recuperative power reminds us of that power of the fabled Phoenix which made it the classical symbol of Resurrection. If these, or some of them, were the meanings which Britons and Saxons saw in the yew, no wonder the missionary left the sacred tree standing, and planted his cross beside it; no wonder when the parish priest erected a cross in any new place of assembly, he planted beside it the Tree in which the popular mind had been accustomed to read such lessons; for the cross set forth the same great truths, as more fully revealed in the gospel of Christ, which natural religion had dimly seen and shadowed forth in the mournful, evergreen, self-renovating tree.+ There are two yew trees, or rather the remains of two yew trees, now standing in the churchyard, and near the church of St. Andrew, in the market-town of Sedbergh, in the West Riding of the county of York. The age of these trees is not known. There is a tradition that an address was delivered under them by George Fox, the founder of the sect of people called Quakers. This was probably about the middle of the seventeenth century. One of the trees is still living; but the other is said to have been killed long since by the cutting off of a large branch which extended to the 100f of the church, and so gave access to that part of the building. * Our informant believed that this was actually the case. † A place in the parish of Lyminge, Kent, is called "Yew-tree Cross." Neither If the churchyard yew trees have been the subject of a good deal of previous discussion, the Wells which often occur in our churchyards seem to have been almost entirely overlooked by the antiquaries. Every one, indeed, is more or less familiar with the fact that there are many wells which, in ancient times, had a certain sanctity and miraculous properties, and sometimes a marvellous origin, attributed to them. Some of them are found to be medicinal waters, and they, therefore, really had curative properties; and it was quite in accordance with "the spirit of the age" to put such wells under saintly invocations, and to attribute their virtues to the miraculous power of the selfchosen patron. Others had no inherent virtue beyond that which all pure cold water possesses, but were reputed to have a supernatural efficacy to the devout. We shall hardly doubt, if we consider the tenacity with which the people cling to their local superstitions, that some of these springs and wells may have been the same to which a superstitious veneration had been paid in the old days of heathenism. From Canute's enactment against worshipping at fountains and trees, we see that the old heathenish rites used to be observed at them down to his day. The crooked pins which the Irish peasantry drop into the holy wells now, and the grotesque mummeries they mingle with the enjoined ecclesiastical observances, are a trace of such practices continuing even to the present time. It was in accordance with the policy of the early teachers to consecrate the wells which the people venerated, and to try to turn the superstition into a Christian channel. Many of these wells became great places of pilgrimage, and prelates often added to their attraction by granting indulgences to those who should visit them. The well was frequently enclosed in a building for its greater honour, and the convenience of the pilgrims, and the profit of the custodiers. A chapel was often attached, in which the seekers of the miraculous virtues of the holy well might make their daily prayer for its efficacy in their own individual case. The wellhouse and the chapel were the pump-room and assembly-room of these ancient spas; inns sprang up to lodge and entertain the pilgrims; and a famous holy well became as great, and perhaps as gay, a place of resort as Bath, or Cheltenham, or Harrowgate, or Tunbridge Wells. And ecclesiastical romancers-the guide-book writers of those daysembellished the original legend, to invest the neighbouring place with the additional charm of poetical association. Some of these fountains were so famous, and famous at so early a period, that the “Holy Well" has given a name to several of the parishes of England and Wales. Holywell, in Flintshire, will serve as an illustration, since it tree nor cross exists there now, but the name seems to indicate that the tree and cross sometimes stood together by the road-side as well as in the churchyard. ST. WINEFREDE. 255 combines all the characteristics of an ordinary holy well which we have mentioned, and is a churchyard well into the bargain. St. Winefrede was a noble British maiden, the daughter of Thewith, who was lord of that part of the country some time in the seventh century, and of Wenlo his wife. St. Benno, a holy man, who had built a church on the same site on which the parish church still exists, was the maiden's uncle. A neighbouring prince, named Caradoc, was enamoured of her charms. One day he pursued her with violence; and when he could not overtake the fleet-footed maiden, he drew his sword in his rage, and at one blow severed her head from the body. The head bounded down the hill, until it reached nearly to St. Benno's church; and lo! where it rested there gushed forth from the earth a copious stream of pure water. This spring was soon found to possess miraculous properties. The moss which grew around had a peculiarly fragrant smell. The stones which had been spotted with the virgin's blood retained the sacred stains; which yearly, on the anniversary of the martyrdom, assumed fresh colours. In fine, the well became a great place of pilgrimage; and continues to be frequented by the country people of that and the adjacent counties to this very day. By the bye, it may be satisfactory to those who are interested in the heroine of the story to learn that St. Benno restored the young lady's head to her shoulders; and that the only personal trace of the adventure which remained was a fine white circle about the neck, which served to authenticate the miracle. The spring is said to be, indeed, one of the finest in the country. The building in which it is at present enclosed is a little architectural gem of the close of the 15th century. That part of the building in which is the well is a square vaulted crypt, over which is a small chapel, contiguous to the parish church, and on a level with it; the entrance to the well being by a descent of about twenty steps from the street outside. The well itself is a star-shaped basin in the middle of the crypt, ten feet in diameter, canopied by a graceful stellar vaulting, and originally enclosed by stone traceried screens filling up the spaces between the shafts which support the vaulting.* (See page 259.) Another well-known example of a pilgrimage well in a churchyard is that at St. Mary of Walsingham, in Norfolk, which Erasmus has described in his "De Peregrinatione." It also was enclosed in a building, and had a chapel attached. But the well in this instance was not a bath; the pilgrims used to kneel and drink the water. When they departed they used to carry some of it away in leaden ampullæ for their own future use, or for the benefit of their distant * A plan and view of this crypt are engraved in the "Archeological Journal,” vol. iii. p. 148. A view of the exterior of the chapel is given in "Grose's Antiquities," vol. iv. friends. There is another well on the west side of Bensey churchyard, Oxfordshire, dedicated to St. Margaret. "Several priests used to dwell here under the appointment of the Prior of St. Frides wide's, Oxon, to confess and absolve devotees; and it is said that Secworth, on the opposite side of the river, contained twenty-four inns for the reception of these pious travellers."* In the exterior of the west end of East Dereham church, Norfolk, is an arch, under which St. Withberga is said to have been buried. Now, a spring of water rises from beneath it; flowing doubtless from the sainted body, as the holy well in Flintshire from the head of her sister, St. Winefrede. At St. Mary-le-Wigford, in the high street of Lincoln, whose church tower has some of the architectural peculiarities which are assigned to the Saxon style of building, there is a spring just under the churchyard wall, so copious as to form a conduit for the supply of the neighbourhood. It is covered over with a very beautiful little erection of 15th century date, in form and design like a miniature chapel,† which is represented in the woodcut on page 249. Others of these wells had a different origin. If we look through the histories of the Celtic saints we shall find that very many of them lived a hermit life, occupying a little cell attached to an oratory, or living in the oratory itself. It was but natural that the hermit saint should build his cell near a stream or spring in order to be near to that most indispensable necessary of life. If we examine the churches which still bear the names of the Celtic saints, and others of similar early character, in Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, and the north of England, we find that some of them are of very early character, and are in all probability the very churches which were first built and inhabited by the saints whose names they bear. Now that which belongs to our subject is this, that the spring or stream which supplied the hermit with water still exists, and in many instances is reputed to be a holy well. It was inevitable that when every relic of the holy man, down to the very rags which he had worn, was reputed to have miraculous powers, the well which he had used should bear his name, and should be reputed to share in his miraculous virtues. But still further, in some instances we find that the oratory was built over the spring, so as to include it within one corner of the area; or the neighbouring rill was conducted under the walls of the oratory, and a basin was sunk within, through which the living stream constantly flowed. We transcribe Mr. Haslam's description of St. Maddern's :- "The oratory was built near a little - "Beauties of England and Wales," xii. 436. + It is engraved in the Archæological Society's annual volume, devoted to the Antiquities of Lincoln. |