Playford Edition:                            

Dargason can be located in the 1st edition of the [English] Dancing Master (1651). 

Documentation Between 1603-1651:

From Isle of Gulls, a comedy by John Day written in 1605 and performed in 1606: 

• "The girls are ours,
  We have won them away to Dargison!" ⁽³⁾

And again: -

• "An ambling nag, and adwone, adowne,
  We have born her away to Dargison." ^(4)"

"Under the name of “Dargison,” unsuspected by the Saxon-speaking English of the period, were concealed two Keltic words, well known to the unliterary stratum of the people, and which when applied to the dance and the tune were suggestive and provocative of sexual desire, like the can-can of our days.” ⁽¹⁾

Documentation Prior to 1603:

Information to follow

Musical History

“There are traces of the existence of an old song of that name [Dargison].  In Ritson’s Ancient Songs, is “a Ballet of the Hathorne Tree,” which is directed to be sung “after [i.e., to the tune of] Donkin Dargeson;” and a song to the “tune of Dargeson” is there said to be in the possession of John Baynes, Esq. Two fragments of such an old ballad are presesrved in the Isle of gulls, a comedy, by John Day; where it appears that carrying persons “to Dargison” implied catching or detaining them.” ⁽²⁾

Click here to see the ballad which is set to an earlier version of Dargason.