The Cherry-Tree Carol- (VA) Conway Learned c. 1890, collected in 1915 Davis C; Scarborough
[One stanza fragment from: Traditional Ballads of Virginia, Kyle Davis Jr.; 1929. His notes follow. Davis, whose notes are usually good, doesn't mention the N-Town play No. 15, which is clearly the important source of this ballad.
This is the earliest reported US text of The Cherry-Tree Carol given in 1915 and dating back possibly before the Civil War. This was reprinted in Scarborough's: On the Trail of Negro Folk Songs, but the text is slightly different (see her version at bottom of this page).
Reported in the 1916 JOAFL:
Professor C. Alphonso Smith reports a version from Miss Ellen Dana Conway, Spottsylvania County, Virginia, sung by an old negro who originally belonged to a family in Orange County, Virginia (Virginia Folk-Lore Society, Bulletin, vol. ii, No. 4, March, 1915). The first stanza only is printed.
The text of this version given in the 1916 JOAFL and Scarborough was slightly different in Davis: Traditional Ballads of Virginia. I'm not sure why.
R. Matteson 2012, 2104]
THE CHERRY-TREE CAROL
(Child, No. 54)
The finding of the fragment C in Virginia in 1915 was the first evidence that "The Cherry-Tree Carol" still survived in America or had ever existed here in oral tradition. No other collector had reported it in 1915 (see Bulletin, No. 4, p. 5; also Journal, XXIX, 293 and 294, note). The source of the carol story is to be found in the Pseudo-Matthew's gospel. Chapter XX, which is thus briefly worded by Child: "On the third day of the fight into Egypt, Mary, feeling the heat to be oppressive, tells Joseph that she will rest for a while under the palm tree. Joseph helps her to light from her beast, and Mary, looking up from under the tree, and seeing it full of fruit, asks for some. Joseph somewhat testily expresses his surprise that she should think of such a thing, considering the height of the tree: he is much more concerned to get a supply of water. Then Jesus, sitting on his mother's lap, bids the palm to bow down and refresh his mother with its fruit. The palm instantly bends its top to Mary's feet." Most British versions of the carol alter this original story considerably: the tree is a cherry-tree, as of course it would be in England; Joseph's ill-humored reply is coupled with an insinuation of Mary's infidelity; the babe speaks, not from his mother's lap, but miraculously from her womb, to bring about the miracle which is a rebuke to Joseph; there are additional stanzas prolonging the story and sometimes known independently as "Joseph and the Angel."
In Virginia A, the only Virginia variant that is nearly complete, the first two stanzas are not to be found in any hitherto printed version. From the third stanza onward the ballad proceeds much as the British versions do through Child A 9, B 8, C 7, D 6, of course with differences of detail. The latter portion about the angel, found in all the British versions, is absent from the Virginia version. The other Virginia fragments, B and C, follow Child B and A, respectively, fairly closely. The melody is simple, but captivating. An interesting letter from Miss Martha M. Davis, one of the staunchest Virginia collectors, concerns this ballad. Temporarily residing at Winthrop College, Rock Hill, S. C., she writes, as of February 21, 1921: "A few months ago several of the teachers here went to hear a Negro preacher one night, a picturesque exhorter of the old type. They came back with a marvelous story (to them) of Joseph and Mary Virgin pickin' cherries from a cherry tree, a part of the gospel story according to this preacher. Well, old ballads are often found in strange company." For other Negro utilizations of old ballad material, see Scarborough, Chapter II, and the head-note to No. 27 of this volume. For American texts, see Bulletin, Nos. 4, 5; Campbell and Sharp, No. 13 (North Carolina); Journal, XXIX, 293 (McGill, Kentucky); McGill, p. 62; Pound, Ballads, No. 19; Scarborough, pp. 60-61; For additional references, see Journal, XXX, 297.
C. "The Cherry-Tree Carol." Contributed by Miss Ellen Dana Conway. Sung by an old Negro nurse. Spottsylvania County. November 1, 1915. I notice in the list you sent a ballad called 'The Cherry-Tree Carol,' and I remember to have heard it sung when I was very young by just one person, my old negro nurse, who has been dead for years. I can remember only the opening lines, which ran thus as below]. This woman had been born a slave, and had originally belonged to the Graves family in Orange County. She may have heard it in that county, or in Spottsylvania, but unluckily there is no way of finding it out now. At least it proves that the ballad existed in Virginia within the last twenty-five years; and it may be yet lingering in either or both of the counties mentioned." (Extract from Miss Conway's letter of November 1, 1915.)
Joseph was an old man,
And an old man was he,
What time[1] he married Mary
Way down in Galilee.
1. What time=When (i.e. Joseph was an old man by the time he married Mary)
_______________
Scarborough reprinted the fragment in her book, On the Trail of Negro Folk Songs:
The Cherry Tree Carol (Child, No. 54) is said to be current among the Negroes of North Carolina as well as of Virginia. Professor Smith was the first to discover this ballad in America, and gives the first stanza of it in the Bulletin of Virginia Folk-lore,
Joseph was an old man,
An old man was he,
And he married Mary,
The Queen of Galilee.
This is reported from the singing of an old Negro in Spottsylvania County, Virginia, who originally belonged to a family in Orange County.
Miss Martha Davis, of Winthrop College, Rock Hill, South Carolina, writes to Professor Smith of the finding of this old ballad in South Carolina:
"A few months ago several of the teachers here went to hear a Negro preacher one night, a picturesque exhorter of the old type. They came back with a story, marvelous to them, of Joseph and May Virgin pickin' cherries from a cherry tree, a part of the Gospel, according to the preacher. Well, old ballads are often found in strange company."