December 15th – By the fruits of her labours

Today’s pick is another plucked from the basket of oddball carols. To the modern layperson’s ear, “Mary and the cherries” does not immediately conjure up any of well-known stories of the season. Donkey, oxen and manger are absent; neither kings nor shepherds nor angels feature; a star does not lead the way. This sweet and rather human tale is set before Christmas night, with a couple, the heavily pregnant Mary and her husband Joseph, walking through a peaceful garden:

“As Joseph and Mary

Walked through the garden gay,

Where the cherries they grew

upon every tree” (3)

Mary, craving the cherries, then asks Joseph for his help:

“O! Then bespoke Mary,

With words both meek and mild,

“Gather me some cherries Joseph, they run so in my mind;

Gather me some cherries; For I am with child.” (4)

In his somewhat snippy response, the carol depicts a grumpy Joseph who is not best pleased with Mary, clearly still not quite trusting her claims that she is no cheat, but pregnant through Divine intervention:

“O! then bespoke Joseph,

with words most unkind.

“Let him gather thee cherries,

that got thee with child.”(5)

In a miraculous twist, Mary is immediately vindicated, with the unborn Christ-child coming to her defence, and concluding with a triumphant invitation for Mary to gather as many cherries as she pleases:

“O! then bespoke Jesus,

All in his mother’s womb,

“Go to the tree, Mary, And it shall bow down; (6)

“And she shall gather cherries

By one, by two, by three.”

Now you may see Joseph,

Those cherries were for me.” (8)

O eat your cherries Mary;

O! eat your cherries now;

O! eat your cherries Mary

That grow on the bough. (9)

(Extract taken from “Ancient mysteries described”, by William Home, pp. 90 – 91; see also “Joseph was an old man” in Sandys, “Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern p. 123, which follows the same story)

One suggestion is that this carol is inspired by a miracle recounted in the gospel of Pseudo-Matthew. In this account, Mary, Joseph and child are resting under a date palm during their flight to Egypt. Mary, seeing fruits in the palm wishes she were able to have some, with Joseph insisting that they are far beyond reach in the tall palm tree. But the Christ-child commands the palm to bend to within Mary’s reach, and so it is that Mary is able to gather dates to her heart’s content.

Our search of the collection has thankfully been fruitful, and the colourful illustrations of cherries and garden fruit we have included today come from sources old and new. First, through the “booke of the arte and manner how to plant and graffe all sorts of trees” (1592, Leonard Mascall) we learn how to ensure our orchards will always be fruitful. The further images offer the reward for dedication in stewarding trees: manuscript illustrations from a French sixteenth-century book of the Office of the Dead (msBX2095.B00 (ms937)), and the cherry-hued fruit bowl by Scottish twentieth-century artist Robin Philipson (HC487, as above).