Taffy was a Welshman

"Taffy was a Welshman" is an English language nursery rhyme with anti-Welsh lyrics, which was popular in England 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:

Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief;

Taffy came to my house and stole a leg of beef;

I went to Taffy's house and Taffy was in bed;

So I picked up the jerry pot and hit him on the head.

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 in;

I jumped upon his Sunday hat and poked it with a pin.

Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a sham;

Taffy came to my house and stole a piece of lamb;

I went to Taffy's house, Taffy was away,

I stuffed his socks with sawdust and filled his shoes with clay.

Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a cheat,

Taffy came to my house, and stole a piece of meat;

I went to Taffy's house, Taffy was not there,

I hung his coat and trousers to roast before a fire.^[2]

Origins and history

The term "Taffy" may be a merging of the common Welsh name "Dafydd" (Welsh pronunciation: [ˈdavɨð]) 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:

Taffy was born

On a Moon Shiny Night,

His head in the Pipkin,

His Heels upright.^[2]

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:

I went to Taffy's house, Taffy was in bed,

I took the marrow bone and beat about his head.^[2]

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

I went to Taffy's house, Taffy was not in;

Taffy came to my house and stole a silver pin.

I went to Taffy's house, Taffy was in bed;

I took up a poker and threw it at his head.^[4]

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