58. Yew twig

Yew tree in Kingley Vale, Sussex

About 5,000 years ago, an old yew tree - perhaps like this one - was growing in a forest in Co. Kerry. Gradually, bog formed and the trees died, but some of the wood was preserved in the brown, acidic bog-water. The wood lay undisturbed for millennia until people dug the bog for turf, exposing old stumps and trunks.

A particularly intricate root-section of the old yew tree found its way to the workshop of artist Ronnie Graham in Kinvara, who fitted it as the triangular back section of the bog-wood throne in the Bealtaine garden. And so the old yew tree has a new life in the Garden.

I am visiting my family home in England, and I thought of the old yew tree today as we walked in one of the great old yew forests of Europe, Kingley Vale in Sussex. It is an extraordinary place, and makes it easy to see why yew is such a venerated tree in mythology. Yew was sacred in Celtic culture and strongly associated with death and re-birth, perhaps because drooping branches that touch the ground can grow new trunks. Yew is often planted in churchyards and some yews are so old it is thought that they pre-date Christianity, so the churches were built next to the sacred trees rather than the other way around.

Standing under these venerable old trees I feel calm, rooted, and humble.

Ancient yew