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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Yew=Jew=Druid
Yew.....Ju...niper
Presumably they the trees predate churches, just like the old testament predates the new.
Looked at this in mining in ancient britain.
The old mine workings became associated with the Jews. Same thing. Obvious. (apologies Trump posting) Time constraint.
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N R Scott
In: Middlesbrough
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| Wile E. Coyote wrote: | | Yew=Jew=Druid |
Ebura is said to mean Yew - the prefix of the Roman name for York. Eboracum.
| The word for "yew" was *ebura in Proto-Celtic |
But Ebura is probably also cognate with the word Hebrew. The Italian for Jew is ebreo.
There was also the famous Jewish massacre at York in 1190 of course.
As crusaders prepared to leave on the Third Crusade, religious fervour resulted in several anti-Jewish violences.
Josce, the leader of the Jews in York, asked the warden of York Castle to receive them with their wives and children, and they were accepted into Clifford's Tower.
However, the tower was besieged by the mob of crusaders, demanding that the Jews convert to Christianity and be baptized. |
Sounds like the crusades were happening in England as well as the Middle East.
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N R Scott
In: Middlesbrough
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Also it's worth remembering that in much of Britain Easter was originally celebrated in accord with the Jewish dating.
| "The Scots and "northern Irish" long clung to their custom of celebrating Easter (Latin Paschua, "Passover") on the same day as the Jews, even after the Synod of Whitby attempted to settle the controversy in 664 C.E." | |
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| N R Scott wrote: | | Sounds like the crusades were happening in England as well as the Middle East. |
Or middle-eastern history was transplanted to England. This whole story is nothing but a retelling of Masada. I posted about this elsewhere.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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Jewish EASTER?
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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Masada is included in the Dead Sea tourist package and the guide told me it didn't happen. I've never let on till now. You don't mess with Mossad.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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There must be an etymological link between Masada and Mossad. What is it?
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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Mossad means base or foundation, usually translated as institute/institution, perhaps to emphasise its bureaucracy rather than power.
Masada means 'fortress' and Wiki takes the trouble to state there is no etymological link so you must be right.
| It has nothing to do with the Hebrew word for base or foundation, "massad". The fortress of Masada is called in Hebrew "Metzadá", but Yitzhak Lamdan, although writing in Hebrew, used the name as it is known from the works of Josephus, |
There's some guff from etymologists about Mossad's name being based on Aliyah Beth, the second wave of returnees, but this is to dilute its role. Mossad is Israel's rock-solid fortress, albeit underground.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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Massada happened. The question is, "Where?"
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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Finally got round to leafing through the Green Man book. It's quite useful to be reminded what an orthodox folklorist thinks (or rather, regurgitates). Folklorists never have explained why green men proliferate in churches but she seems to think the Green Man, prior to the 1940s and '50s, epitomised evil
| The Green Man's colour certainly confirms him as supernatural; as we have seen, green is the colour of the fairies, and it's also associated with the Devil in medieval thought |
Amber Butchart, a fashion historian, had a programme discussing clothes in the Arnolfini portrait by the Flemish artist, Jan van Eyck. The wife's dress is green, which was the colour of banking according to Ms Butchart, so the very sumptuous dress instantly establishes the couple is rich.
A grotesque money-man has quite a contemporary ring. Maybe the green men in churches represent the sin of wealth, Mammon in the temple and all that, but many green men (occasionally women) look very content with their lot. ('Course, the patrons who paid for the churches were wealthy)
I wonder if commerce and the colour green were linked before fifteenth-century banking houses. An association between green and that old chestnut, 'fertility', has a kind of logic and green men are generally thought of as fertility figures.
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Some useful criticism, Mick, which I must try to address:
"The waxy, spindle-leaves of conifers in general and yew in particular are well adapted to reduce water loss in cold, dry environments."
| Mick Harper: This must be wrong. In the first place there is no correlation (as far as I know) between cold and dry. It is true that the very coldest places are also dry but they lack all trees. In any case, even if it were true, it does not explain why, on your own figures, yews are eighty per cent of conifers in such places. |
I should have left out 'dry' which was confusing, referring to where they grow on soils which dry out easily. More detail on water-loss adaptation:
| Conifer needles have a unique structure which limits the loss of water, a precious commodity in this environment. Pine needles have fewer stomata than broadleaf tree leaves. The stomata are recessed into pits on the needle and aligned in a groove on its underside. The groove in the needle creates a small layer of still air which slows the loss of water vapor by diffusion. Water loss is further reduced by the thick waxy coating common to pine needles. Water is "shut off" from the tree when the ground completely freezes. Under these circumstances the stomata close-up to prevent loss of water from the tree. |
http://www.earthonlinemedia.com/ebooks/tpe_3e/biogeography/biogeography_ecology.html
Immediately after the a major ice retreat the virgin environment would still have been cold, so the most resistant flora would have advanced first, presenting pines and yews before deciduous trees.
| Mick Harper: Not if the yews-turned-into-arrows theory is correct. |
I believe the bow theory is correct as far as general woodland is concerned, though in periods when the climate was warmer, forestry clearance for human habitation and greater competition from deciduous trees may have been factors as well.
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More on Cranborne Chase. The yews tend to be in the east of it. Large areas of soil are chalky, which yews don't mind but other trees struggle to tolerate. Apparently-
| the ancient yews growing here were protected when much of the land became large ecclesiastical estates, and doubtless as excellent horticulturists, the monks planted others. When the monastic lands were dissolved, the yews fell under the guardianship of wealthy landowners, a situation which continues to the present day. Other yews were planted, including many in the 18th and early 19th century to shelter the droveways |
https://www.ancient-yew.org/mi.php/the-ancient-yews-of-cranborne-chase/66
Cranborne Chase remained crown property until 1616, when it was granted to Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury. His great-grandson, the 3rd Earl, sold it to Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury in 1671. His son, the 2nd Earl, sold it in 1692 to Thomas Freke (d. 1701), who bequeathed it to Elizabeth Freke (the wife of his kinsman, also Thomas Freke) and her father Thomas Pile, with reversion to George Pitt should she die without children. Pitt inherited Cranborne Chase from her in 1714, and it passed from father to son in the Pitt family to his great-grandson George Pitt, 2nd Baron Rivers, after whose death it was disfranchised.[2]
Much of the Chase is still owned by large estates such as Kingston Lacy. |
"They don’t like waterlogged environments, though it is claimed that their tough wood is one of the most resistant to rot."
| Mick Harper: This makes no sense from the yews' point of view. |
Their preference for well-drained soils has nothing to do with the bark and wood above ground which may well indeed be resistant to rot.
Mick Harper: Why would England ignore superior technology until it was forced to adopt it?
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The convenience of cheap, locally grown timber coupled with for many years a lack of knowledge of the alleged superiority of Spanish yew.
| During the Middle Ages, the yeoman archer was illiterate, while the scholars of the day, by virtue of their noble birth, had little knowledge of archery. |
http://margo.student.utwente.nl/sagi/artikel/longbow/longbow.html
Roger Ascham, who wrote a treatise on archery, Toxophilus in 1545, was both an ardent archer, scholar and tutor to Elizabeth I. Around this time knowledge of continental yew woods would have been better.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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Wiley's comment about mining should be borne in mind, yew makes strong mining props. Oak would be wasted perhaps. Yew is famously slow-growing so not of great commercial interest, once the woods have been depleted anyway.
Surprisingly some yew woods remain in Spain, according to http://www.iberianature.com/material/yew_spain.htm
| unlike northern Europe where most yew woods were felled, northern Spain is still home to a few remarkable patches of yew forest, often in associated with common oak. |
and
| Elsewhere yews are common as an isolated tree in most mountainous areas of Spain. |
Mines are mostly in mountainous areas.
| Testament to the once more common presence of yew woods is the plethora of placenames - Tejeda/Tejedal/Teixadal - meaning yew wood. |
Hardly a 'plethora'. Two out of the three are in Asturias, northern Spain. Quite wet but poor soil.
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Catalonia also has small yew woods, whose viability are now of concern to conservationists:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269090189_Distribution_and_characterization_of_yew_forest_in_Catalonia
They are also in mountainous situations.
So far I've not managed to find web evidence of yew and pit props but, unexpectedly to me, the wood crops up in connection with oak in the Bronze Age Ferriby boats (yew to major in flexible strength and oak in rigid strength depending on which part of the boat), religious figurines and buckets/tankards. The resistance to decay of yew was celebrated by Gilpin in 1791: "where your paling is most exposed either to winds, or springs; strengthen it with a post of old yew".
(Robert Bevan-Jones: The Ancient Yew, a History of Taxus baccata.)
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