Yew (Dutch)
Yew (Eng.)
Taxus baccata (Bot.), a native conifer. It grows very slowly, but has a long life. He may even be the longest living creature on earth plant. He is the patriarch of long-lived forests in ancient times and was the only evergreen tree. It has been found fossil remains of the yew that 140 million years old. This tree has survived several climate changes, adapted and is still alive. After the glaciers after the last Ice Age back getrokkken had existed 80% of large European forests from yew trees.
Peoples of the northern hemisphere as the Celts, Greeks, Romans, Germans and the North American Indians understood the significance of this particular tree.
For the Druids (Celtic priests), in reincarnation and the Christians who believe in the resurrection, the Taxus symbol for eternal life.
He plays mostly in English mythology an important role.
In Celtic tradition, the oldest and most venerable yew tree in the world. The magic wheel by which the Irish druid could fly Can Ruith consisted of yew.
Some people believe that English yew trees older than the churches in their area. They believe that the churches were built in a place where yew trees grew.
His reputation with regard to longevity verdankt the Taxus in the way it grows. If he is not cutting, grow its branches to the ground, will root and form new trees that grow around the central trunk as separate, but interconnected trees. After a while they differ not from the mother tree. The whole seems to a large shrub with many branches. Thus the yew symbol of death and rebirth: the new comes from the old.
Old Yew of Fortingall
People use
Under a yew in England were often ritualistic meetings. The sacred tree was seen as a gateway to the world of spirits.
Cuttings are planted in cemeteries of the Taxus to help the deceased find the way to the hereafter.
Yews were often planted along routes to help people lead the way as he grew old and stayed evergreen. At the spot where King John and his barons signed the Magna Carta in 1215, was a yew as a symbol of a special event.
They also planted a yew like next to a resource so thanks for the clean drinking water.
There is also an old tradition to the cross, symbol of death and resurrection, of yew wood carving.
bleeding yew
The famous yew trees of Nevern in Wales said that they secrete a red blood-like fluid in sympathy with the sufferings of Christ. Yew branches were often carried in processions on Palm Sunday and altars were adorned with it. They also picked vine branches on New Year's greet the new year.
In the school of barbs (Celtic singers) were used yew rods for songs with many verses to memorize.
The surviving British shaman Dusty Miller manufactures walking sticks and other objects of yew. Before he cut a branch from a tree, he asks for permission first and then his life not from this branch to withdraw. That's why he calls his objects Living Wood.
Meaning of the name
The Dutch name refers to the yew for people and livestock toxic seeds in the berries red leaves. In the English tradition, one does not have the venom of the tree, but on mystical force of evil at bay.
In his book The Celtic Druids, "says Godfrey Higgins that it is quite possible that the English word for yew yew could be associated with the word Jehovah. If so then it means Yew Tree of God.
The word is derived from the Greek yew taxon which means bow, because of yew bows and shields were made. Taxus is the word of toxic (poisonous) is derived. It refers to the poisonous parts of the tree. Others say that yew is from the Latin texo what weaving means. Yew bark was once used for weaving fact - and wickerwork. Baccata indicates the apparent red berries.
Other names for the Dutch language in yew wood bow, iemenbos, and wijpalm Iepe. The Achterhoek speak also of snotterbezieboom and in North Limburg tree of death.
Legends and folk beliefs
Robin Hood and his gang would have to boast of their power derived from yew wood. Robin was buried near a yew.
A Christian legend speaks of a yew involved in the death of Christ was dark with pain and the vow to be lethal to humans and animals.
Witches used yew branches - picked during a lunar eclipse - witch ointment to make of it. It rubbed, they could fly.
When a sprig of yew on the body bears chased the evil.
Calves hit it with a name for the taxustwijg magic to ward off evil.
Robin Hood
Death and resurrection
Behind the church Fortingall in Perthshire (village in Scotland) grows a giant 3000 year old yew. Of them is said to be associated with death and resurrection of Jesus. Residents of this place say that Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor that Jesus condemned to death on the cross, when he played under its branches was a child because his father would have been a Roman legionnaire who was stationed in Scotland.
"Their Altars Lord Druid priests placed,sun and moon and adored.A tree - the sacred Yew,symbol of Immortality -Beside Their altar Grew. "
In Irish mythology, one of the five sacred yew trees, from the spirit world, brought to earth. The Tree of Ross (Irish word for Taxus) say that he descended from the tree of paradise. The Brehon Laws (ancient Irish laws) he is mentioned as one of the seven chieftain trees. One story was the possession of a yew reason for a war "of the Yew Tree Disputes Sons" was called.
Taxus is the last of the 20 trees of the Celtic tree oracle (Ogham), a system in which the Druids brought their wisdom expressed.
Dreams and stories
The high status of yew is also evident in an Irish story in which a pig shepherd dreamed that he saw yew on a rock with a chapel in the foreground. Angels went in and out. He asked a druid to interpret this dream which stated that the rock the throne of the future kings of Munster symbolized. Those who first lit a fire under a yew was the first king.
In the tragic love story of Baile and Ailinn, Baile died of grief over the loss of the beautiful Ailinn. After she was buried, there grew a vine on her spontaneous graf.Tussen its branches appeared the head of the girl.
Probably the name of the Scottish island of Iona (one of the Hybrids), the sacred island of St. Columba (Irish saint) originated from the Gaelic word for "yew-tree, or Ioho Ioha. This island was once an important center for the Druids, planted with sacred yew bushes.
In Scotland, planted the priest at St. Ninian yews several cemeteries, including the famous Fortingall Yew in Perthshire where Beltanevuren each year in a tear of the tribe are inflamed (Beltane, the Celtic spring festival).
Tree of sadness
Taxus baccata was for the ancient Greeks and Romans a tree where you had to have respect. Taxustak served often as a magic wand that you could turn people into stone or save. Because of the dark green needles are soft to the Greeks was a yew tree of sorrow. No wonder he was often planted in cemeteries. Yew was the tree of the underworld by his dark avoided. Yew branches were worn at funerals as a wreath. The Furies (mythological goddesses of vengeance) torches of yew.
The English poet Become Roth says of the yew tree as follows (free translation):
They appear dark .... the profane:
a pillar-like shadow
on the bare, red-brown soil,
(Colored by the evergreen foliage).
.
It is a festival with cheerless berries,
where under the roof of branches at midday
ghostly shapes reside.
Silent Future, trembling with fear and hope,
skeleton of death and the shadow of time,
like a temple;
by nature raised by moss-covered altars.
Someone else wrote poetry occasion of the coronation of a monarch:
Produces a cup of yew
dedicated to you, frost,
in memory of old times.
You yourself, as a yew
are tough and sturdy
because your roots
reaching far into the earth
and the branches to the sky.
Sacred tree of Germanic
Yew was a sacred tree by the Germans. A shaman under a yew Sat was able to travel to other worlds. He could see things that were hidden for ordinary Teuton. People were warned not to sleep under a yew because one might never wake up would be.
According to the Germanic epic Edda is the market town of Asgard, the gods planted with yew trees. They were dedicated to the god Thor / Donar.
Meaning now
What I write is something you should try and experience yourself. In contact with a Taxus through meditative to stand under its branches or the trunk to touch, you can rid of fears and inspire you to solve your problems. Enclosing the branches with its dark green, soft needles can you calm it.
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