The Cherry Tree Carol is a song that I (Neal) used to do with the Mill Run Dulcimer Band about this time of year. It's very straightforward in our arrangment though there are a number of different versions available from a variety of sources. I remember hearing it done by Joan Baez in my formative years and I suppose that's where I learned it. At any rate, we always did it in the key of C but here I've arranged it in the key of D with an F#m in the one place that gives the tune its character. Seeking more information, I looked the song title up in the Wikipedia and discovered that:

The Cherry-Tree Carol" is a ballad with the rare distinction of being both a Christmas carol and one of the Child Ballads (no. 54). The song itself is very old, reportedly being sung, in some form, at the Feast of Corpus Christi in the early 15th century. The versions eventually collected by Francis James Child are thought to be a combination of up to three separate carols that merged together through the centuries.

The ballad relates an apocryphal story of the Virgin Mary, presumably while traveling to Bethlehem for the census with Joseph. 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, Jesus, from the womb, speaks to the tree and commands it to lower a branch down to Mary, which it does. Joseph, witnessing this miracle, immediately repents his harsh words. The more contemporary versions sometimes end here, while others often include an angel appearing to Joseph and telling him of the circumstances of Jesus's birth. Many versions then jump ahead several years, where the next verse picks up with Jesus on his mother's lap, telling her of his eventual death and resurrection."

The story is derived from the apocryphal Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, which combines many earlier apocryphal Nativity traditions; however, in Pseudo-Matthew, the event takes place during the flight into Egypt and the fruit tree is a palm tree (presumably a date palm) and not a cherry tree. In the apocryphal Gospel, Jesus has already been born and so Joseph's truculence is unrelated to any dismay over Mary's pregnancy, but has to do with an inability to reach the fruits of the palm and a concern over the family's lack of water.

The song has been recorded by Peter, Paul, and Mary, Pentangle, Joan Baez, Mary Hopkin, the King's College Choir, José Feliciano, John Rutter and the Cambridge Singers, and Colin Meloy.

Click Here for an Adobe Acrobat version of the Mountain Dulcimer TAB. 
Click Here for an Adobe Acrobat version of the Autoharp TAB.
Click Here to listen to a midi file.