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.

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 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.I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), pp. 400-1.

Origins and history

The term "Taffy" may be a merging of the common Welsh name "Dafydd" and the Welsh river "Taff" on which Cardiff is built, and seems to have been in use by the mid-eighteenth century.M. Stephens The Oxford Companion to the Literature of Wales (Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 569. The rhyme may be related to one published in Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book, printed in London around 1744, which had the...
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