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"The Cherry-Tree Carol": Its Sources and Analogues

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"THE CHERRY-TREE CAROL": ITS SOURCES AND ANALOGUES Pamela L. Royston In general, scholars agree that certain popular ballads of the late Middle Ages seem to interrelate with a variety of other genres in both origin and narrative development and in form. Various ballads within the Child canon have been compared and contrasted with their antecedents and analogues in court1 y lyrics, carols, re1 igious songs, sagas, historical chronicles, and verse ro- mances. In the case of the "Cherry-Tree Carol ,It Francis James Chi Id's headnotes di- rect the student to compare the ballad with several apparent sources: most notably, chapter XX of the Pseudo-Mathew gospel and the second chapter of Luke. Further, Child points out that "there are many narratives of the childhood of Jesus, based on the apoc- ryphal gospels, in which this legend must needs be found.lt2 Thus, the student is di- rected to compare the manner in which Child Ballad 54 tel Is the story of Mary's request that Joseph pluck her some fruit from a tree with the manner in which the same story is told in the fourteenth century Cursor Mundi, the fifteenth century northern Childhood of Jesus, and the fifteenth century Coventry Mystery, 'IN Town," or "The Birth of Christ." These presentations of the story offer ample basis for a comparison from which the stu- dent may begin to consider how Child Ballad 54 submits to the processes of the ballad tradition material which is conveyed both in the popular-dramatic context and in the didactic, harmonistic context which related such materials to parallel passages in the Holy Scripture. 3 Through such tracing and comparison, it is my purpose to demonstrate that, in the case of "The Cherry-Tree Carol," (1) we need to abandon the old question as to whether a ballad derives by a process of "degenera- tion" or "reduction" from models of written poetry or song; and (2) we need to consider anew that, whatever impetus is provided, the ballad is essentially self-generative, perpetuating and celebrating an experience within a context which is peculiarly its own. This paper endeavors to suggest that, via oral tradition, "The Cherry-Tree Carol l1 relays a story just as interesting and com- plex, albeit different in its orchestration of complexity, as its literary analogues. It endeavors, in effect, to appreciate Child Ballad 54 within its own donnCe without viewing it in isolation from time and place, or literary and social history .4 But, first, let me issue a word of caution. As valuable as Child's headnotes may be in initiating the student who would undertake a source study of Ballad 54, the title which the editor ascribes to the song is both misleading and disorienting. "The Cherry-Tree Carol" is not a carol. It is more ballad-like. The song exemplifies at least two of Motherwel l 's three definitive "ballad features." It is distinguished by that dra- matic structure which rushes headlong into the narrative or story with no prefatory re- marks or detailing of background; and it is characterized by a number of common- places--for instance, the impossible task, the sympathetic plant, the mother-son dia- I~gue.~More generally, "The Cherry-Tree Carol" epitomizes what David Buchan calls the "recreative" nature of the oral process. That is, it forms and re-forms a story in a number of different ways and, apparently, provides a good deal of recreation, a good deal of creative play and sport in doing so. Although "The Cherry-Tree Carol" sug- gests certain aspects of the popularized re- ligious story, and although it suggests cer- tain aspects of Christmas celebration in some of its American variant^,^ it does not comply with Richard Leighton Greenets definitive statement that: The presence of an invariable line or group of lines which is to be sung before the first stanza and after all stanzas is the feature which distinguishes the carol from all other forms of Middle English lyric? I have not observed the presence of a bur- den in any of the variants of "The Cherry- Tree Carol ." Nor have I observed the pres- ence of what Evelyn K. Wells proposes as the essential characteristic of the carol: namel y , the refrain inherent in the stanzaJ0 I am aware that a recent commentator on "The Cherry-Tree Carol1' adopts a contrary point of view. In general terms, David C. Fowler, in A Literary History of the Popular Ballad, places "The Cherry-Tree Carol," as a religious song, at the periphery rather than at the center of the canon of balladry.11 In specific terms, Fowler focuses upon "The Cherry-Tree Carol "Is disp I acemen t of the apocryphal story from its place in the flight into Egypt sequence to draw two con- clusions about the song's generic .identity. First, he states that the transfer of the story to a nativity setting displays "an in- genuity that is scarcely attributable to folk re-creation. '"12 Second, he states that the new setting of the cherry-tree incident "necessari l y makes this piece a Christmas or nativity carol. 11 13 Fowler here isolates and defines a ge- neric type according to the most rudimentary observations about setting and subject matter. In my view, "The Cherry-Tree Carol'l's transfer of the cherry-tree incident to a new setting incorporates a striking ar- ray of motifs, commonplaces, and narative techniques which define the canon of bal- ladry as a whole. I propose that "The Cherry-Tree Carol" is much more than a set- piece celebrating Christmas or nativity. In order to demonstrate the bal lad's tonal and thematic complexity, and its participation in the oral tradition, I shall refer the reader to the other redactions of the story. I n the Pseudo-Matthew gospel, chapter XX, the story unfolds as Mary and Joseph flee across the desert into ~~~~t.14On the third day of the journey, Mary is overcome with fatigue and the heat of the sun. Seeing a tree, she says to Joseph, "Let us rest for a while under the tree's shade." Joseph hur- ries to lead Mary to the palm and helps her dismount from the ass. After Mary sits down, she notices that the leaves of the palm tree are full of fruit. She asks Joseph to gather these fruits for her. Joseph replies that he is astonished to hear such a request and points out not only that the tree is of ex- cessive height, but also that they are in real need of water because the animal skins, being nearly empty, need to be refilled. At this point, the baby Jesus, sitting on his mother's lap, says to the palm, "Oh tree, bend down your branches and refresh my mother with your fruits." The palm immedi- ately inclines its top and green twigs to Mary. As Mary gathers the palm-fruits, the tree remains inclined, waiting for a second command from Jesus to rise up again. Jesus says to it, "Lift yourself up and strengthen yourself and be the sister of the trees which are in my father's paradise. Also, uncover 5 from your roots a stream of water, which is presently hidden in the earth, and let the waters flow out of this vein to our ful- fillment." Immediately, the palm becomes erect, and the clearest, coldest, and sweet- est springs of water begin to flow from its roots. Joseph and Mary, seeing the springs of joyful water, exult with great joy. Giving thanks to God, with all beasts and men, they are fulfilled. Unlike the ballad narrative which will be discussed in the next part of this paper, the gospel narrative sketched above is rel- atively lofty in tone. The Latin text is re- plete with a number of imperatives, and the explicit and direct commands of Jesus lend a sense of providential necessity to both dialogue and action. The rather explicit moral or exemplum which concludes the story would seem to invoke the reader to join Mary and Joseph and all of creation in the proper praise of God. The gospel caps this invoca- tion with a symbolic picture of the heavenly paradise; and, in focusing a significant amount of graphic attention upon the trans- formation of the palm, the gospel opens itself to harmonistic and anaigogical interpretation. The life-giving water which springs from the roots of the desert-planted palm may very well accrue its full meaning in relation to the oil of mercy which flows from the tree that Seth sees in the center of paradise. Likewise, the related gift of fruit to Mary within the prophetic context of the . Cantica Canticorurn would seem to bring the Pseudo- Matthew into accord with the concept of sal- vation. Final ly, the transformation of the tree in the desert, given the palm's special association with Jesus' ride into Jerusalem, looks forward to the transformation of the tree as the cross on Calvary. This indirect approach of evocation allows the concept of redemption to constitute the background of the story. The narrative begins as an ap- parent description of the trials of a journey, then changes to a reflection of Mary's tra- vail, and finally becomes a revelation of the possibility of succour and of the coming of salvation to the world. On the deepest level, the story as outlined in the apocry- phal gospel does not look at the human round, but rather looks--or at least directs the reader's view--heavenwards. When we turn to the story outlined in "The Cherry-Tree Carol, " w.e: encounter a very different kind of focus and approach: Joseph was an old man, and an old man was he, When he wedded Mary, in the land of Galilee.
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