Page:English folk-carols.djvu/79

 evade Him, hide themselves in a vault and are changed by Him into kids. In the Syriac Gospel of the Boyhood Jesus, when five years old, plays at a ford with streams of water, collecting them into a pool. One of His companions took a stick from a willow tree and destroyed the pool; whereupon, Jesus said: "Without root shall thy shoot be, and thy fruits shall dry up like a bough of the wood which is broken by the wind, and is no more. And the boy immediately withered away" (Cowper's Apocryphal Gospels, p. 449). In the same Gospel a boy, who was running, struck Jesus with his shoulder. "Jesus saith unto him: Thou shalt not go thy way. And immediately he fell down and died." Again, Jesus was playing on the housetop when one of His companions, Zeno, accidentally fell down and was killed. Jesus, accused by the boy's kindred of casting the boy down, said to Zeno: "Did I cast thee down?" Whereat Zeno leaped up and said: "No, my Lord."

Professor Gerould also mentions a sunbeam legend—unaccompanied, however, by the drowning incident—in the Laurentian MS. of Pseudo-Matthew.

Now the main thesis of all these stories is very similar to that of The Bitter Withy; the Infant Christ goes out to play, someone offends Him and in consequence suffers death, or severe punishment, brought about by supernatural means. But this, it will be noted, is in marked contrast to the story of the Holy Well, in which Jesus refuses to punish those who have slighted Him, even when incited to do so by His Mother. From this we may, I think, conclude that The Holy Well is a comparatively modern recension of The Bitter Withy, modified so that it shall the better accord with a truer conception of the character of Jesus.

Mrs. Clayton gave me the words of the first stanza only. The remaining stanzas were sung to me by Mrs. Anne Roberts at Winchcombe (Gloucestershire) to a different tune. The words in the text have not been altered.

The words are very similar to a set printed by Hone (Ancient Mysteries Described 1823, pp. 90–1), from which the last two lines of the fifth stanza, which Mrs. Plumb forgot, have been taken. Except for this interpolation, the words in the text are as Mrs. Plumb sang them.

This carol, of which I have noted eight variants, may be found in all the representative carol collections. The words, too, have always been exceedingly popular with broadside printers.

The legend upon which the story of this carol is based, is a variant of one related in one of the Apocryphal Gospels (Pseudo-Matthew, Chapter xx). Joseph and the Virgin with the Infant Jesus are fleeing to Egypt when Mary, seeing a palm tree, proposes that they shall rest awhile under its shade. Noticing that the tree was heavy with fruit she asks for some. Joseph somewhat