[HPforGrownups] Several topics

[Denise Rogers]

No: HPFGUIDX 2560

Thanks for this info, Rita!  I knew I was on the right track with that thought!

7. Yew is the tree of death, depicted on Victorian mourning cameos
showing a woman weeping at a gravestone next to a tree. I know that yew
berries are poisonous and that yew wood is the natural composite that
made the English longbow so deadly, and TEX AND MOLLY IN THE AFTERLIFE
says that yews are planted in graveyards because they 'thrive on
corruption' i.e. eat rotting corpses.

While holly  has much more life-oriented associations. It is a symbol of
Christmas, which is not only the birth of their Savior for Christians,
but the time when the amount of sunlight in the day starts to lengthen.
Holly, ivy, and pine got that Xmas gig because, as evergreens, they are
among the few plants still green and visibly alive in the snow. My
friend showed me a medieval Tristan and Iseult tale in which King Mark
makes a compromise with Tristan: one will have her when the trees are
green and the other will have her when the trees are bare. King Mark
chooses when the trees are bare, since then the nights are longer, more
time for bed fun with his reluctant wife, but Tristan triumphantly
points out that Mark NEVER gets her, since the holly and the ivy are
NEVER bare.



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