“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 sung in some form at the Feast of Corpus Christi in the early 15th century.

The ballad relates an apocryphal story of the Virgin Mary, presumably while traveling to Bethlehem with Joseph for the census. 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. – Wikipedia