The Cherry Tree Carol - OLD CAROL 3

(St Joseph's College - Dumfries - at dusk)

JOSEPH was an old man,
and an old man was he,
When he wedded Mary,
in the land of Galilee.

This carol was reported to be sung at the Feast of Corpus Christi in the early fifteenth century.    Joseph and Mary are traveling to Bethlehem with Joseph for the census. In the most popular version, the two stop in a cherry orchard, and Mary asks her husband to pick cherries for her, citing her child. Joseph spitefully tells Mary to let the child's father pick her cherries.
At this point in most versions, the infant Jesus, from the womb, speaks to the tree and commands it to lower a branch down to Mary, which it does.

King's College Cambridge