Found in the Hermetikon archive

Yew

Taxus baccata

Yew appears in Hermetikon as an archive-backed plant entry, with references across historical medical, magical, symbolic, and ritual contexts where the source texts support them.

Risk: high
Books: 45
Contexts: 6
Mentions: 171

Overview Reading Contexts Citations Related Books

Archive Profile

Identity, safety, and search aliases used to connect this herb to the archive.

Herb identity

Common name: yew
Latin name: Taxus baccata(candidate)
Identity note: Strong funerary, churchyard, and magical tree associations.

Safety

high

Yew is highly toxic; leaves and seeds contain dangerous taxine alkaloids.

Historical archive citations are not medical advice. Use modern clinical and poison-control sources for ingestion, dosage, pregnancy, and toxicity questions.

MedlinePlus: Yew is highly toxic; leaves and seeds contain dangerous taxine alkaloids.

Aliases

yewTaxus baccatayew tree

Yew in Historical Sources

Curated archive synthesis of recurring uses, recipes, rituals, and interpretive problems.

Hermetikon's curated reading of Yew (Taxus baccata) is built from 3 source-linked archive notes and 2 preparation or ritual-use entries. The strongest recurring contexts are ritual uses, identity, and safety. Each note below links back to the archive source used for the claim.

Safety

high

King's gives the clearest yew safety evidence: excepting the fruit pulp, all parts of the yew tree are poisonous, with ancient and modern toxic reports.

King's American Dispensatory | Harvey Wickes Felter | 1854

Page 1030

Identity

medium

Hill's yew citation is actually yew-leaved fir, where the useful tops and shoots belong to fir resin medicine rather than true Taxus baccata.

The Family Herbal | John Hill | 1755

Page 320

Ritual

medium

Frazer records yew as one possible wood for the Shropshire Christmas brand, a large trunk tended through the Christmas season without borrowing or striking new light.

The Golden Bough | James George Frazer | 1913

Â§ 7. The Midwinter Fires.

Preparations and ritual uses

Christmas brand

medium

Frazer's Shropshire Christmas brand could be oak, holly, yew, or crab-tree, drawn to the hearth and kept burning through the Christmas season.

The Golden Bough | James George Frazer | 1913

Â§ 7. The Midwinter Fires.

Churchyard dance setting

medium

Sikes records Welsh churchyard dancing beneath a large yew tree, making the tree part of a churchyard ritual setting rather than a medicinal preparation.

British Goblins | Wirt Sikes | 1880

IV.

Yew Archive Contexts

Compact source patterns from the extracted citation set.

Medicine

2 passages across 2 books; strongest source: Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics.

Matched as yew tree; high confidence.

Astrology

2 passages across 2 books; strongest source: Pistis Sophia.

Matched as yew; medium confidence.

Folk magic

1 passage across 1 book; strongest source: The Golden Bough.

Matched as yew; medium confidence.

Preparation

3 passages across 3 books; strongest source: Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians.

Matched as yew; high confidence.

Ritual

1 passage across 1 book; strongest source: British Goblins.

Matched as yew tree; high confidence.

Safety

5 passages across 5 books; strongest source: Error's Chains.

Matched as yew; high confidence.

Yew Cited Excerpts

Representative public passages with the herb mention highlighted and linked to archive source material.

5 shown

King's American Dispensatory

Harvey Wickes Felter

1854

"...ces in Canada and the northern parts of the United States. History. — Excepting the pulp of the fruit, all parts of the yew tree are poisonous. Pliny, Dioscorides, and other ancient writers, mention the poisonous properties of the leaves and seed, and it has been recorded that wine, preserved in casks made of its wood, has occasioned the death of those who drank it. Strabon states that the Gauls u.sed the juice of the leaves as a poison for their arrows. More recent observations have confirmed the statements as to its toxic character; and we frequentlj' read of ..."

Page 1030Open in Reader

Safetyalias: yew treehigh confidence

The Family Herbal

John Hill

1755

"...and inconsiderable; and the fruit is a long and large cone, which hangs down; whereas that of the true fir tree, or the yew-leaved fir, stands upright. The tops of the branches and young shoots are used: they abound with a resin of the turpentine kind. They are best given in decoction, or brewed with beer. They are good against the rheumatism and scurvy; they work by urine, and heal ulcers of the urinary parts. Pitch and tar are produced from the wood of this tree, the tar sweats out of the wood in burning, and the pitch is only tar boiled to that consisten..."

Page 320Open in Reader

Preparationalias: yewmedium confidence

The Golden Bough

James George Frazer

1906

"...urnal , xxx. (1907) pp. 144 sq. ; A. B. Ellis, Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast , pp. 37 sq. ; H. Seidel, â€œDer Yewâ€™e Dienst im Togolande,â€ Zeitschrift fÃ¼r afrikanische und oceanischen Sprachen , iii. (1897) p. 161; H. Klose, Togo unter deutscher Flagge , pp. 197 sq. ; L. Conradt, â€œDie Ngumbu in SÃ¼dkamerun,â€ Globus , lxxxi. (1902) p. 353; Guerlach, â€œMÅ“urs et superstitions des sauvages Ba-hnars,â€ Missions Catholiques , xix. (1887) pp. 442, 454; J. A. Jacobsen, Reisen in die Inselwelt des Banda-Meeres (Berlin, 1896), pp. 49 sq. , 232; C..."

Chapter 22Open in Reader

Folk magicalias: yewmedium confidence

The Golden Bough

James George Frazer

1913

"... Pulverbatch and Pontesbury. The Christmas brand or brund, as they called it, was a great trunk of seasoned oak, holly, yew, or crab-tree, drawn by horses to the farm-house door and thence rolled by means of rollers and levers to the back of the wide open hearth, where the fire was made up in front of it. The embers were raked up to it every night, and it was carefully tended, that it might not go out during the whole Christmas season. All those days no light might be struck, given, or borrowed. Such was the custom at Worthen in the early part of the ninete..."

Â§ 7. The Midwinter Fires.Open in Reader

Medicinealias: yewmedium confidence

The Discoverie of Witchcraft

Reginald Scot

1584

"...nom of beasts, and bewitched drinks". " Palma." Willows in England were used as the palm on Palm Sunday ; sometimes the yew; but here I incline to think he means Palma Christi, a flat-hand rooted orchis. "Antirchmon." I suspect a misprint for "antirrhinum", calf s snout, snap-dragon, A — . Linn. Pliny, b. 25, c. 8, says it is much esteemed by enchanters, "Lappoint." Minshen gives "Lapouin", as the French for lapwing, but I have been unable to find this word. Wier v, 21 § 6, says, as Scot, "Dicuntur & pennse upupas suffitse, phantasmata fugare", and the upup..."

Page 674Open in Reader

Astrologyalias: yewmedium confidence

Books Mentioning Yew

Complete public source inventory, placed after the interpretive reading so the page opens with the most useful synthesis first.

45 books

Pistis Sophia

G.R.S. Mead | 1921

Archive Profile

Herb identity

Safety

Aliases

Yew in Historical Sources

Safety

Identity

Ritual

Preparations and ritual uses

Christmas brand

Churchyard dance setting

Yew Archive Contexts

Medicine

Astrology

Folk magic

Preparation

Ritual

Safety

Yew Cited Excerpts

King's American Dispensatory

The Family Herbal

The Golden Bough

The Golden Bough

The Discoverie of Witchcraft

Related Archive Material

Related herbs

Books Mentioning Yew