Taffy was a Welshman

= Taffy was a Welshman =

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"Taffy was a Welshman" is an English languagenursery rhyme which was popular between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19237.[1]

'''Lyrics '''

Versions of this rhyme vary. Some common versions are:'''Origins and history '''The term "Taffy" may be a merging of the common Welsh name "Dafydd" ( Welsh pronunciation:  ) and the Welsh river "Taff" on which Cardiff is built, and seems to have been in use by the mid-eighteenth century.[3] The rhyme may be related to one published in Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book, printed in London around 1744, which had the lyrics:

The earliest record we have of the better known rhyme is from Nancy Cock's Pretty Song Book, printed in London about 1780, which had one verse:

Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief; Taffy came to my house and stole a piece of beef; I went to Taffy's house, Taffy wasn't home; Taffy came to my house and stole a marrow-bone.[2]

Similar versions were printed in collections in the late eighteenth century, however, in Songs for the Nursery printed in 1805, the first signs of violence were evident, ending with:

In the 1840s James Orchard Halliwell collected a two verse version that followed this with:

This version seems to have been particularly popular in the English counties that bordered Wales, where it was sung on Saint David's Day (1 March) complete with leek-wearing effigies of Welshmen.[2] The image of thieving Welshmen seems to have begun to die down by the mid-twentieth century, although the insulting rhyme was still sometimes used along with the name "Taffy" for any Welshman.'''Notes '''
 * 1) I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), pp. 400–1.
 * 2) M. Stephens, The Oxford Companion to the Literature of Wales (Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 569.
 * 3) J. O. Halliwell, The Nursery Rhymes of England (London, 1846), p. 19.
 * 1) J. O. Halliwell, The Nursery Rhymes of England (London, 1846), p. 19.