Comment by nickdothutton
5 days ago
They are planted in graveyards in the UK, it prevents grazing animals from entering and soiling up the place. The animals seem to know to keep away. They cant nibble the grass without getting a mouthful of the needles.
I’ve heard a different reason for their presence in graveyards: because yew kills grazing mammals that eat it, it was cut down everywhere that people grazed animals, which excluded graveyards
My understanding is that churches were built next to yew trees, not yew trees planted next to churches.
Pre-Christian religions had many associations with yew trees (they live for a long time, give off mildly hallucinogenic gasses on hot days, discourage animals), and so built their holy sites around them. When Christianity came to Britain, churches were deliberately built on pagan holy sites to overrun the old religions, in the same way that early Christianity took over roman holy days (Saturnalia -> Christmas, Lemuria -> All Saint's Day). This led to churches being built next to sites with copious yew trees.
The Christmas/ Saturnalia link is a myth.
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I hear Yew is uniquely poisonous to horses (I mean, they are especially susceptible to it)
The more I learn about horses the more they seem like a creature that’s continually trying to die - and humans get to try and stop them succeeding.
Perhaps that's how aliens would see humans. Perpetually trying to die except for a small group of humans fighting disease, monitoring and protecting climate, keeping order, etc.
Horses are especially susceptible to *everything*.
Millenia of selective breeding to try for the healthiest strongest animals we can, and they're still shit.
They'll get ill if they breathe wrong. They'll get ill if they eat a mouthful too much or too little of grass that's ever so slightly too green. They'll get ill if it's too rainy or not rainy enough.
How the hell did they even evolve?
Selective breeding for being useful to humans, not for being able to survive on their own.
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Here in the US the most common large wild grazing animals are deer, which can quite happily eat yew.