The Cherry-Tree Carol

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The Cherry-Tree Carol is a ballad with the rare distinction of being both a Christmas carol and one of the Child Ballads (no. 54). The song itself is very old, reportedly being sung, in some form, at the Feast of Corpus Christi in the early 15th century. The versions eventually collected by Francis James Child are thought to be a combination of up to three separate carols that merged together through the centuries.

The ballad relates an apocryphal story of the Virgin Mary, presumably while traveling to Bethlehem for the census with Joseph. In the most popular version, the two stop in a cherry orchard, and Mary, being weary and hungry, asks her husband to pick cherries for her.

O then bespoke Mary

So meek and so mild:

"Pluck me one cherry, Joseph,

For I am with child."

Joseph, in an uncharacteristic moment of spite, knowing the child is not his, tells Mary to let the child's father pick her cherries.

O then bespoke Joseph,

With words most unkind:

"Let him pick the a cherry

That brought you with child."

At this point in most versions, Jesus, from the womb, speaks to the tree and commands it to lower a branch down to Mary, which it does. Joseph, witnessing this miracle, immediately repents his harsh words. The more contemporary versions sometimes end here, while others often include an angel appearing to Joseph and telling him of the circumstances of Jesus's birth. Many versions then jump ahead several years, where the next verse picks up with Jesus on his mother's lap, telling her of his eventual death and resurrection.

The story is derived from the apocryphal Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, which combines many earlier apocryphal Nativity traditions; however, in Pseudo-Matthew, the event takes place during the flight into Egypt, and the fruit tree is a palm tree (presumably a date palm) and not a cherry tree. In the apocryphal Gospel, Jesus has already been born and so Joseph's truculence is unrelated to any dismay over Mary's pregnancy, but has to do with an inability to reach the fruits of the palm and a concern over the family's lack of water.

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