The Yew-tree has been considered an emblem of mourning from a very early period. The Greeks adopted the idea from the Egyptians, the Romans from the Greeks, and the Britons from the Romans. From long habits of association, the Yew acquired a sacred character, and therefore was considered as the best and most appropriate ornament of consecrated ground. Hence in England it became the custom to plant Yews in churchyards, despite the ghastly superstition attached to these trees, that they prey upon the dead who lie beneath their sombre shade. Moreover our forefathers were particularly careful in preserving this funereal tree, whose branches it was at one time usual to carry in solemn procession to the grave, and afterwards to deposit therein under the bodies of departed friends. The custom of planting Yew trees singly in churchyards is also one of considerable antiquity. Statius, in his sixth Thebaid, calls it the _solitary Yew_. Leyden thus apostrophises this funeral tree:-- “Now more I love thee, melancholy Yew, Whose still green leaves in silence wave Above the peasant’s rude unhonoured grave, Which oft thou moistenest with the morning dew. To thee the sad, to thee the weary fly; They rest in peace beneath thy sacred gloom, Thou sole companion of the lonely tomb; No leaves but thine in pity o’er them sigh: Lo! now to fancy’s gaze thou seem’st to spread Thy shadowy boughs to shroud me with the dead.” The Mountain Ash is to be found in most Welsh churchyards, where it has been planted, not as a funeral tree, but as a defence against evil spirits. In Montgomeryshire, it is customary to rest the corpse on its way to the churchyard under one of these trees of good omen. William Cullen Bryant, the American poet, has left us a graceful description of an English churchyard:-- “Erewhile on England’s pleasant shores, our sires Left not their churchyards unadorned with shades Or blossoms; and, indulgent to the strong And natural dread of man’s last home--the grave! Its frost and silence, they disposed around, Too sadly on life’s close, the forms and hues Of vegetable beauty. Then the Yew, Green even amid the snows of Winter, told Of immortality; and gracefully The Willow, a perpetual mourner, drooped; And there the gadding Woodbine crept about; And there the ancient Ivy.” The Walnut-tree, of which it is said that the shadow brings death, is in some countries considered a funeral tree. In India they call the Tamarisk, _Yamadutika_ (Messenger of Yama, the Indian god of death), and the _Bombax Heptaphyllum, Yamadruma_, the tree of Yama. The Elm and the Oak, although not strictly funeral trees, are connected with the grave by reason of their wood being used in the construction of coffins, at the present day, just as Cypress and Cedar wood used to be employed by the ancients.