Playford Edition:                            

Sellenger’s Round can be located in the 3^rd edition of The [English] Dancing Master, (1657). 

Documentation Between 1603-1657:

In The First and Second parts of the Fair Maid of the West: Or, A Girl Worth Gold (1631), it is stated:

Act 2; Scene 1:

• "Clem: I am so tired with dancing with these same black she chimney-sweepers, that I can scarce set the best leg forward: they have so tired me out with their moriscos, and I have so tickled them with our country dances, Sellengers Round and Tom Tiler.  We have so fiddled it!"⁽¹⁾

Documentation Prior to 1603:

‘The Beginning of the World’ and ‘Sellenger’s Round’ are mentioned, in Thomas Heywood’s play A Woman Killed with Kindness, (written & performed in 1603/published in 1607). 

Act 1; Scene 2; Line 31-32: 

• “Jenkin: ‘Rogero’?  No, we will dance ‘The Beginning of the World’.” ⁽²⁾

 Act 1; Scene 2; Line 45:

• “Jenkin: So the dance will come cleanly off.  Come, for God’s sake agree of something!  If you like not that, put it to the musicians or let me speak for all, and we’ll have ‘Sellenger’s Round’.” ⁽³⁾

 In later editions of The [English] Dancing Master, Sellenger’s Round is also referred to as ‘The Beginning of the World’.

The explanation of why ‘Sellenger’s Round’ was also referred to as ‘The Beginning of the World’ can be found in Tom Tomkis’s play Lingua: Or, The Combat of the Tongue and the Five Senses for Superiority, 1607.  Although the play was published in 1607, the reference made by Communis Sensus of “for our queen or for our country” ⁽⁴⁾, which is made in Act 4; Scene 7, makes it evident that the play was written prior to 1603.  In fact, according to The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in Eighteen Volumes (1907–21).  Volume VI. The Drama to 1642, Part Two, the first time that the play was performed was in 1602.

• “Anamnestes: By the same token, the first tune the planets played, I remember Venus the treble ran sweet division upon Saturn the bass.  The first tune they played was Sellenger’s round, in memory whereof ever since it hath been called “the beginning of the world.”” ⁽⁵⁾

Further information on ‘Sellenger’s Round’ is also given in footnote 272, from Lingua, where it states:

• “St Leger’s round.  “Sellinger’s round was an old country dance, and was not quite out of knowledge in the last century.  Morley mentions it in his Introduction, p. 118, and Taylor the Water Poet, in his tract, entitled, ‘The World runs on Wheels;’” ⁽⁶⁾

In Something for Everybody and A Garland for the Year - A Book of House and Home, Timbs writes about the grand Christmas festivities of Henry XIII and Edward VI, which were set aside during the reign of Mary I.  He writes about Elizabeth I renewing the Christmas festivities with plays and masques.  He states, "In "Father Hubbards Tale", written in this reign, we find the old Christmas gambles, "carols, wassil-bowls, and dancing of sellengers round in moonshine about Maypoles, shoeing the mare, hoodman-blind, and hot cockles.""⁽⁷⁾

The Introduction in which Morley mentions it is A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practical Musicke. (1597).

Sellenger’s Round’ is also found in Bacchus’ Bountie (1593), where it says:

• “While thus they tippled, the fiddler he fiddled, and the pots danced for joy the old hop-about commonly called ‘Sellinger’s Round’.” ⁽⁸⁾

 ‘Sellenger’s Round is also mentioned in John Pickering’s interlude to Horestes (1567), “where it calls for ‘Have Over the Water to Florida’ or ‘Sellenger’s Round’.  ⁽⁹⁾

According to Sir John Hawkins, one of the earliest Rounds is Sellengers Round, “which Sir Anthony St. Leger saw danced in Ireland, in 1540, and which, on retiring from the Viceroyalty in 1548, he brought back with him to England, where its popularity was so great that it was arranged by the famous master, Dr. William Byrd.” ⁽¹⁰⁾

According to Kidson, ““Sellinger's Round” is a 16th century tune and round dance of unknown authorship, which had immense popularity in the 16th and 17th centuries.” ⁽¹¹⁾  Kidson also thought that the original dance may have been a maypole dance, because of a wood-cut, located in the front of a 17^th century garland, that shows people dancing around a maypole, and had the title “Hey for Sellinger’s Round”.   

Following the line of thought that there is a connection between St. Legers and Sellengers is a passage in William Flood’s A History of Irish Music. According to Flood, after Lord Leonard Grey – who was the Viceroy of Ireland – was recalled, Sir Anthony St. Leger replaced him for a short time.  “This St. Leger, or Sellenger, was sworn into office on July 25th, 1540, and was, on the whole a tolerant ruler.” ⁽¹²⁾

Musical History

Sellenger’s Round has been called "a singularly perfect example of a Mixolydian (tune) superficially resembling a major-scale melody". ⁽¹³⁾

William Byrd arranged a version of Sellenger's Round "as a Virginal 'lesson' for 'Lady Nevell's booke'." ⁽¹⁴⁾

Another source for the tune is a manuscript (circa 1575), that is in the collection of Michael d’Andrea. 

Other names for the same tune are:

§         The Vinter Over Reached

§         Caper & Fark