Folklore

Winkelbury
Hillfort

Kathleen Wiltshire’s story below apparently harks back to when General Pitt Rivers excavated a round barrow here. Winkelbury was his first full season of serious, well-recorded excavations of enclosures and settlement sites, in winter 1881-2. He removed a dead yew tree, known locally as a ‘scrag’ from the round barrow. ‘The villagers were troubled by his disturbance of the dead and removal of the ancient tree which they believed protected them from malign influences; they were only placated when another dead yew was ‘planted’ with all due ceremony some time later.‘

From Martin Green’s book ‘A landscape revealed – 10,000 years on a chalkland farm’ (2000).

Yews and hawthorn obviously figure prominently in people’s lists of important trees. The idea of a dead tree being protective seems quite strange? but maybe it’s not uncommon. It reminded me of the anecdote connected with Big Tree longbarrow in Somerset.