CHAP. CXII.

TAXA'cEiE. Ta'xUS.

2071

on Christianity on its first introduction. It would indeed be surprising, ifone so innocent and so congenial to their best feelings were not allowed, asa tribute to departed worth or friendship, under that new and purer system,which confirmed to them the cheering prospect of a reunion after death withthose who had shared their pleasures and affections here. History and tra-dition concur in telling us that this was the case, and that the yew wasalso closely connected, in the superstitions of our simple forefathers, withghosts and fairies.

“ In the works of a very ancient Welsh bard, we are told of two churchesrenowned for their prodigious yew trees: —

‘ Bangor Esgor, a Bangeibyr HenllanYssid er clodvan er clyd Ywyzs*

which Dr. Owen Pugh thus translates:—‘The Minster of Esgor, and thatof Henllan, of celebrity for sheltering yews.’ Henllan signifies an old grove;thus proving that its church stood where druid worship had been performed.Can we, then, longer doubt the real origin of planting yew trees in our church-yards ? If it be said that this usual, though not natural, situation of the yewtree proves the venerable specimens which we find in churchyards not to beolder than the introduction of Christianity, it may be replied, that our earliestChristian churches were generally erected on the site of a heathen temple,and that at least one motive for placing churches in such situations would betheir proximity to trees already sacred, venerable for size, and indispensablein their religious rites. That these rites were performed, and altars erected,in groves, from the remotest antiquity, we know from the Pentateuch. Thedevotions and sacrifices of Baal among the Moabites, and the idolatrous ritesof the Canaanites and other tribes of Gentiles, were performed in groves andhigh places. The druids chose for their places of worship the tops of woodedhills, where, as they allowed no covered temples, they cleared out an openspace, and there erected their circles of stone. Many of the remote Welshchurches are on little eminences among wooded hills. Mr. Rootsey ofBristol has suggested that our words kirk and church might probably haveoriginated in che word cerrig, a stone or circle of stones; the first churcheshaving been placed within these circular stone enclosures. Hence also,perhaps, caer, a camp, which word is used in some parts of Wales for thewall round a churchyard. Dr. Stukeley believes that round churches arethe most ancient in England. A circle was a sacred symbol among theEastern nations of antiquity; and it would be interesting to know whetherthe raised platform within a circle of stones, which is sometimes found roundour old yews, as in Darley and Llanfoist churchyards, be not a remnant ofthis superstition. Many of the first Christian churches were built and inter-twined with green boughs on the sites of druidical groves. When Augustinewas sent by Gregory the Great to preach Christianity in Britain, he was par-ticularly enjoined not to destroy the heathen temples, but only to remove theimages, to wash the walls with holy water, to erect altars, Sec., and so convertthem into Christian churches. These were the designata loca Gentilium, in whichour converted ancestors performed their first Christian worship. Llan, sogeneral a name for towns and villages in Wales, is a corruption of the Britishllwyn, a grove; and, strictly, means an enclosure, rather than a church, theplaces so designated being, probably, the earliest-inhabited spots, and alsothose where religious rites would be celebrated. (See p. 1717.) Eglwys meansa Christian church (ecclesia); and, probably, those were so called whichwere first erected after the introduction of Christianity, and not on the site ofa heathen temple.” (Mag. Nat. Hist., 2d series, vol. i. p. 87.)

The Rev. W. T. Bree, in the Magazine of Natural History, vol. vi. p. 48.,also suggests the probability of churches having been built in yew groves, ornear large old yew trees, as greater than that of the yew trees having beenplanted in the churchyards after the churches were built. A consecratedyew (according to a table quoted in Martyn’s Miller, and taken from theancient laws of Wales,) was worth a pound, while a wood yew tree was worth