There are several versions of a carol known by this
name with them all being linked in one way or another to the second of the
The Cherry Tree Carol series of Christmas songs. The version known as "As Joseph Was A-Walking" is said to
be an adaptation of a Traditional Breton song and was published in London by
Ralph Dunstan in his The Cornish Song Book in 1929. It is thought to have been sung in
Cornwall, England, at the Cornish Plays of around 1400 but has been
suggested it is possibly even older from France and of traditional Breton origin.A second version is entitled "As Joseph was a Waukin'" described
as being Traditional English and published by Burton Egbert Stevenson in New
York in The Home Book of Verse in 1912.A further third version and possibly the best known
version is "As Joseph Was A Walking" which was written and composed by
Henry John Gauntlett and published by R.R. Chopes after his death in Carols
for Use in Church in 1894. Sabine Baring-Gould taught this one to some girls in
1884, but during the time he was reciting the carol to them, they stopped
him and started singing a different carol that seemed similar to them and
was possibly a variation on The Cherry Tree Carol.
