But then, then.
In the year 874 came the Vikings, came the Vikings who seized and burnt and destroyed. They swept north from Chichester into the Sussex weald and forest of Kingley Vale. The Saxon defenders sought sanctuary among the ancient green and mossy pathways where the Yew trees held sway, but found no respite there. The Yew could only watch and grieve as, day after night after day, the once silent groves echoed with the violence of sword and shield, shriek of iron and split bone. The inhumanity of it, the pointlessness of it, slipped weeping into the leaf and the bough of the Yew tree, turning the brown bark to purple. And the presentiment of death seeped into the berries, staining the pale, subtle fruit a vivid red.
Then the Yew understood that the cycle of things had changed. How their destiny was to stand witness, memorials to those who had fallen in order that such things should not happen again. That they must live until the lesson of harmony had been remembered. They did not wish it, they did not wish to be left behind as the rowan and the sycamore and the beech passed into different lives, different dimensions, but they accepted it was their lot because of the battles that had been fought beneath their branches. So where each warrior fell in Kingley Vale, a Yew touched the earth with long, trailing fingers and a new tree sprang up. Soon, where the bodies of the courageous slain lay, a copse of sixty Yews stood sentinel, a reminder of where the last battle had been fought and lost.
So the ancient Yews of Kingley Vale lived and lived and lived and lived, bound now to an unkind cycle of decay and rebirth and memory. Their branches grew down into the soil to form new stems. The trunks of the sixty trees rotted, but gave life within to new trees that grew and grew until they were indistinguishable from the root.
The years passed. The generations passed, the centuries passed in the endless pattern of silver springs and shimmering summers, golden autumns and hoary winters. But still men did not learn that death breeds only death. Little by little, the reputation of the Yew grew. Without wishing it, the Yew became a symbol of resurrection and hope, of wisdom. In Marden and Painswick, Clifton-upon-Teme and Iona, throughout the length and breadth of the country, the Yew became the favoured tree of the graveyard, of mourning, testament to the transience of memory and the frailty of human experience.
Twelve hundred years have passed since that first battle. Still, if you follow the path to the centre of Kingley Vale, the sixty stand untouched by sun or moon or rain. Their branches are gnarled, twisted like an old man’s knuckles, their boughs are weary. Fingers, tendrils, trail the ground, touch the earth, paddle deep around in mossy roots and stippled bark. And within and above and around the wood, dwell green woodpeckers, red kites and buzzards, deer and stag, the chalkhill blue, holly blue and brimstone butterflies, so brief.
The people of Sussex fear to walk in the oldest part of the forest. They say that, at the winter solstice, the Yew trees whisper to one another, sing sibilant song of the folly of men. And so they do. Each year, when the shimmering spirits walk, if you listen carefully you will hear the trees speak of the hopes, the stories, the delusions of men, all the words they have captured in the seams of their leaves, the run of their branches, over the previous year. The indiscretions of human beings as they have come to the grove to walk, to pray, to weep, to climb, to rest, to wish.
These Yew trees are the oldest living things in the country. They wish it was not so. They would like to slide softly away, as can the ash and the oak and the elder. But human memory is brief, stupid, unconnected. Men have not yet learnt to live side by side, like the trees of the forest. So when the white winter dawn comes once more, and the solstice is over, the Yews sigh and stretch and settle back into their ancient selves once more.
For the length of an age.
Author’s Note
This is one of four stories inspired by mythology or ancient legend. ‘Why the Yew Tree Lives So Long’ was commissioned in 2011 for a short story collection published in aid of the Woodland Trust. All proceeds raised went towards the charity which protects our woodlands.
Why Willows Weep was the brainchild of bestselling novelist Tracy Chevalier, who edited the collection which includes stories from Richard Mabey, Rachel Billington, Blake Morrison, Joanne Harris, Philippa Gregory, Tahmima Anam, Ali Smith and Philip Hensher. Each piece was inspired by a different tree – silver birch, oak, ash, beech – and with woodcut illustrations by Leanne Shapton.
I chose the yew trees of Kingley Vale, close to where I was born and grew up in Sussex. The oldest yew forest in Europe, there are many myths and legends associated with the nature reserve, not least that the oldest of the trees sprang up at the spot where the Saxon defenders of the Sussex Weald fell trying to hold back the Viking invasion of the ninth century.