Cherry Tree Carol

One of those lovely apocryphal stories that cast the Holy Family in a more human light: the Cherry Tree Carol.  A pregnant lady with food cravings, an irritated fiance, a miraculous tree, a talking baby: it's got everything.

Joseph and Mary walked through an orchard green,
They saw berries and saw cherries, fair to be seen.

As Joseph and Mary walked through the wood
They saw cherries and berries, red as any blood.


O then bespoke Mary, so meek and so mild:
‘Pluck me one cherry, for I am with child.’
O then bespoke Joseph, with words unkind:
‘Let him pluck thee a cherry that brought thee with child.’

(Ouch.)

O then bespoke the babe, within his mother’s womb:
‘Bow down then the tall tree, and give my mother some.’
Then bowed down the cherry tree unto his mother’s hand;
Then she cried, See, Joseph, I have cherries at command.

Then Mary plucked a cherry, as red as the blood,
She went home with her heavy load
Then Mary took her babe all on her knee,
Saying, My dear son, tell me what this world will be.

‘O I shall be as dead as the stones in the wall;
O the stones in the streets shall mourn me all.
Upon Easter-day uprisen I'll be;
O the sun and the moon shall both rise with me.’

Another take on this carol here.