it was not the fairies but sheltering wayfarers that wore away the grass; the latter growing during the famine years while the country was desolate and without an inhabitant. Also dififerent thrushes carry the haws and plant them in the out-of-the-way places where the hawthorn grows. In North Munster the fieldfare or feld is called the skeauraun because it carries the haws and sows the skea in the grass-land.
What carried the seed of the ash, except the wind, I do not know, as I think it is too bitter for any bird to eat. As it grows so quickly, is so easily transplanted, and is so common, it is not to be wondered at if it was specially planted adjoining the wells, while afterwards it would be protected by its sacred position. Some of the oldest Irish trees that I remember to have seen were ash; especially a hollow one at Duniny, co. Gal way, in which a hedge-schoolmaster held his school. A second very large one in the same county is at an ancient church near the shore of Lough Derg, its back having sent up a circle of young ash-trees. The yew's connection with ecclesiastical settlements seem to have been principally due to its being required on Palm Sunday in the religious procession. A great many places in Ireland, as mentioned by Joyce, have been called after the yew. Among the others, Youghall, co. Cork, was called after a yew-wood now under the sea in Youghall bay, while Mayo was the plain of the yews. There are different fine ones still remaining in some of the ancient abbeys as at Muckruss, Killarney; while lone leafless stumps occur in places all over the island, the finest assembly being on the crags near the ferry of Knock on the Galway side of Lough Corrib; of them there used to be twenty-three or thereabouts coming up out of the bare crag. These ancient yews must have been as old as the yews found below the peat in the neighbouring bogs.
