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.

The song was recorded by Pentangle on their album Solomon's Seal. Joan Baez , Mary Hopkin, and José Feliciano also recorded a version of the song.

[edit] 1910 version

As listed in The Oxford Book of Ballads 1910.

First Verse

JOSEPH was an old man, and an old man was he,

when he wedded Mary in the land of Galilee.

Joseph and Mary walk’d through an orchard good,

where was cherries and berries so red as any blood.

Joseph and Mary walk’d through an orchard green,

where was berries and cherries as thick as might be seen.

O then bespoke Mary, so meek and so mild,

‘Pluck me one cherry, Joseph, for I am with child.’

O then bespoke Joseph with words so unkind,

‘Let him pluck thee a cherry that brought thee with child.’

O then bespoke the babe within his mother’s womb,

‘Bow down then the tallest tree for my mother to have some.’

Then bow’d down the highest tree unto his mother’s hand:

when she cried, ‘See, Joseph, I have cherries at command!’

O then bespake Joseph— ‘I have done Mary wrong;

but cheer up, my dearest, and be not cast down.

‘O eat your cherries, Mary, o eat your cherries now;

o eat your cherries, Mary, that grow upon the bough.’

Then Mary pluck’d a cherry as red as the blood;

then Mary went home with her heavy load.

Second verse

As Joseph was a-walking, he heard an angel sing:

‘This night shall be born our heavenly King.

‘He neither shall be born in housen nor in hall,

nor in the place of Paradise, but in an ox’s stall.

‘He neither shall be clothéd in purple nor in pall,

but all in fair linen, as were babies all.

‘He neither shall be rock’d in silver nor in gold,

but in a wooden cradle that rocks on the mould.

He neither shall be christen’d in white wine nor red,

but with fair spring water with which we were christenéd.

Third verse

Then Mary took her young son and set him on her knee;

‘I pray thee now, dear child, tell how this world shall be.’—

‘O I shall be as dead, mother, as the stones in the wall;

o the stones in the street, mother, shall mourn for me all.

‘And upon a Wednesday my vow I will make,

and upon Good Friday my death I will take.

‘Upon Easter-day, mother, my uprising shall be;

o the sun and the moon, mother, shall both rise with me!’