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CHAPTER I
THE BEGINNING
The first Fountains Abbey was a forest tree. In the days of the simple beginning, the brethren ate and slept and said their prayers under an elm which stood in the middle of the valley.
The elm lived into the eighteenth century, and toward the end of its life was made to divide its honours with a group of venerable yews. Some said that the monks found their first shelter under the yews. But Serlo settled the matter, hundreds of years ago, in favour of the elm. Ulmus, he said, Ulmus erat vallis in medio, lignum frondosum. The yews were there, however, in the first days, and one or two of them are still surviving.
They are propped up on either hand, like an old man leaning on his staff;
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