Some of us remember when it was a custom, in the parishes of West
Cornwall, for a few elderly persons to meet in Church, late on
Christmas Eve, and sing till after midnight, a good number of cheerful,
quaint old carols, which were quite different from the solemn Christmas
hymns that have supplanted them.
The favourite carols, for the most part contained such legends as are
preserved in the Mysteries, or Old Miracle Plays, which continued to be
performed in the western parishes, on Sunday afternoons, down to
Elizabeth’s reign or later. Others may have been derived from the
Apocryphal Gospels.
Such, for instance, are the circumstances referred to in the
Cherry-tree carol, beginning with
“Joseph was an old man, an old man was he,
When he wedded Mary, in the land of Galilee,
When Joseph and Mary walked in the garden good,
There were cherries and berries as red as the blood.”