A middle stage of the belief is illustrated by the Scottish practice of burying self-murderers outside the churchyard, but close by the wall. (Cf. p. 352 _supra._) This plan was afterwards modified to the extent of allowing the body to come technically within the yard, but to be placed actually beneath the wall, so that no one might walk over the grave[932]. In England, we find constant reference to the burial of suicides in the open fields. The custom of driving a stake through the bodies of persons found _felo de se_ has been noticed. This brutal treatment, excusable in folk who, in the dawn of the world, had a real horror of ghosts and vampires, was only abolished by law in the year 1823[933]. Yet, as if to prove the unequal working of the human mind, and to exemplify the truism that like customs have not everywhere the same lease of life, we find remarkable exceptions to the rule. While the barbarous belief concerning suicide still held its sway, church discipline was, on the whole, gradually relaxing, and ordinary burials were permitted to take place within the sacred building. Then came the exception which we have examined. A certain part of the burial-ground was devoted to burials of murderers and suicides. In at least two cases, as attested by parish registers, the bodies of murderers were admitted into the church, though still on the North side of the fabric (A.D. 1616 and 1620)[934]. The fact is, that one can scarcely mention a single custom or tradition which has not been disregarded exceptionally at certain periods, though the main current has flowed on almost as strongly as ever. No doubt each particular infraction was the result of powerful local influences. For, even to this hour, as has been clearly shown, the body of the suicide or the manslayer may be interred in the churchyard, and yet remain, according to the superstition, “out of sanctuary.” CHAPTER IX THE CHURCHYARD YEW The student who attempts to master the problem of the churchyard yew finds himself in danger of being bowed down by the burden of conflicting facts and theories. With respect to the facts, there lies at hand a note-book containing the jottings of years, but so plethoric are its pages, that a mass of detail must be correlated and much matter shorn away before the case can be presented with any degree of lucidity. Concerning the theories, folk-memory lends us little help. It does not ring true, and there is more than a suspicion that it has been influenced by ideas gathered from the printed book of the ecclesiologist and the antiquary. “Things are as they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be, wherefore, then, should we desire to be deceived?” Following the spirit of Butler’s philosophy, let us leave aside all hypotheses for the present, and review the facts. It will conduce to clearness if the particulars are summarized in due order.