The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #54374   Message #844409
Posted By: IanC
10-Dec-02 - 06:54 AM
Thread Name: Quiz: Dances & Tunes
Subject: RE: Quiz: Dances & Tunes
12 - Dargason (1651)
The Hawthorn Tree (from Lesley Nelson's page) (http://www.contemplator.com/folk6/hawthorn.html).
"This tune appears in The Dancing Master (1650-51) as Dargason, or Sedany. The Sedany was a country dance. The words are in Ritson's Ancient Songs under Class IV, (from Edward VI to Elizabeth) as A Mery Ballet of the Hathorne Tre, to be sung to the tune of Donkin Dargeson.
One Hundred Songs of England says Dargeson may be a reference to an "old piece played by the Children of the Revels at Blackfriars in 1606 entitled The Isle of Gulls." A couplet from The Isle of the Gulls has a reference to a place named Dargison. There was also a children's story with a dwarf named Dargison who served as a page to the hero. The tune Dargeson or Sedany was entered in the Stationers' Register on Aug. 13, 1579. For more information see Bruce Olsen's Roots of Folk, Scarce Songs 1: Hawthorn Tree. The Irish Washerwoman is a variant of this tune (it has a second part). "

(NB Gustav Holst wrote a fantasia on The Dargasson).