Similarly a charmed packet containing dried Yarrow has been credited with bringing success to its bearer, if at the same time he were admitted to the knowledge of a traditional secret (only whispered to the initiated) that this was the first herb our Saviour had put into His hand when a child.
Again, Elspeth Reoch, in 1616, when tried for witchcraft, acknowledged to having employed the Yarrow in her incantations. She "plucked one herbe called Meleflower, sitting on her right knee, and pulling it betwixt the mid-finger and thumbe, and saying: In nominee Patris, Filii, et Spiritus Sancti." The Meleflower is the Achilloea Ptarmica or Sneezewort.
By the plant so gathered, she was enabled to cure distempers, and to impart the faculty of prediction.
YEW.
Although the Yew—a Conifer—which is so thoroughly English a tree, is known to be highly poisonous as regards its leaves to the humans subject, and as concerning its loppings or half-dead branches, to oxen, horses, and asses, yet a medicinal tincture (H.) is made from the young shoots, which has distinct and curative uses. Both the Yew and the Ivy were called abiga, because [620] causing abortion. From which word when corrupted was formed iua; and under this latter name, says Dr. Prior, the Ivy and the Yew became inextricably mixed up.
Moreover, the red berries, or their coloured fleshy cups, are not poisonous when taken in moderation, but rejecting the seeds.
Gerard says: "When I was yong, and went to schoole, divers of my school-fellows and likewise myself, did eat our fils of the berries of this tree, and have not only slept under the shadow thereof, but among the branches also, without any hurt at all, and that not one time, but many times."
Yet Leo Grindon says, much more recently: "Though the juice and pulp of the sweet and viscid berries are not harmful, still the seeds of the Yew, and the leaves are deadly poison."
In the Herbal of 1578, Lyte tells us the Yew is altogether venomous, and against man's nature. "Such as do but only sleep under the shadow thereof become sick, and sometimes they die;" and, "the extract of yew is used by ignorant apothecaries to the great peril and danger of the poor diseased people."
The Yew tree (Taxus baccata) occurs in mountainous woods and rocky glens about Britain, but is rare as of native growth. Its name, Taxus, is a corruption of toxos, an arrow, since arrows in the old time were poisoned with the juice of yew.