> From: Ron Hornsby [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Thursday, September 30, 1999 8:35 PM
> To: medieval-religion
> Subject: Yew trees in Denmark
>
> People
>
> Regarding the religious roots of yew trees in English
> churchyards we have been left hanging just when it was
> getting really interesting. We have reached an impasse
> on the question of whether Danish priests could have
> brought over the yew. However, we have learned that yews
> grow in southern but not northern Norway. By implication
> then they grow in Denmark being further south.
>
Tell me if I missed something, but if yews were widespread in Irish
and British areas before the arrival of the Danes, and they were associated
with burial places long before the Danes arrived, and Christian priests
tended to take over Christian sites and turn them into the sites of churches
and churchyards--why is it not more likely that the yews were in churchyards
long before the Danes arrived?
Francine Nicholson
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