"Taffy was a Welshman" is an

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

nursery rhyme A nursery rhyme is a traditional poem or song for children in Britain and many other countries, but usage of the term dates only from the late 18th/early 19th century. The term Mother Goose rhymes is interchangeable with nursery rhymes. From t ...

which was popular between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. It has a

Roud Folk Song Index The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of around 250,000 references to nearly 25,000 songs collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world. It is compiled by Steve Roud (born 1949), a former librarian in the London ...

number of 19237.

Lyrics

Versions of this rhyme vary. Some common versions are:

Origins and history

The term "Taffy" (pronounced with a short "a" to rhyme with

Daffy Duck Daffy Duck is an animated cartoon fictional character, character created for Warner Bros. Cartoons, Leon Schlesinger Productions by animators Tex Avery and Bob Clampett. Styled as an Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic American black duck, black ...

) may be a merging of the common Welsh name "

Dafydd Dafydd is a Welsh masculine given name, related to David, and more rarely a surname. People so named include: Given name Medieval era :''Ordered chronologically'' * Dafydd ab Owain Gwynedd (c. 1145-1203), Prince of Gwynedd * Dafydd ap Gruffydd (123 ...

" () and the Welsh river "

Taff Taff may refer to: * River Taff, a large river in Wales * ''Taff'' (TV series), a German tabloid news programme * Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund, an organisation for science fiction fandom People * a demonym for anyone from south Wales * Jerry Taff ( ...

" on which

Cardiff Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital and largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, links=no), and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingd ...

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 term "Taffy" or "Taff" was not necessarily derogatory, though clearly it is in the verse and in many other contexts. In WW2 it was used without any slur, to refer to soldiers of Welsh origin, just as other regional slang names like Geordie, Scouse or Jock were used. Similarly a Welsh teacher in an English school might be referred to as "Taffy (surname)". However, the suggestion of a slur remains in the fact that Welsh people would very rarely refer to themselves as "A Taff", whereas, for example, Geordies might use that name for themselves. The rhyme may be related to one published in ''

Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book ''Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song-Book'' is the first extant anthology of English nursery rhymes, published in London in 1744. It contains the oldest printed texts of many well-known and popular rhymes, as well as several that eventually dropped out of ...

'', 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: 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 James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps (born James Orchard Halliwell; 21 June 1820 – 3 January 1889) was an English Shakespearean scholar, antiquarian, and a collector of English nursery rhymes and fairy tales. Life The son of Thomas Halliwell, he ...

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 Saint David's Day ( cy, Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant or ; ), or the Feast of Saint David, is the feast day of Saint David, the patron saint of Wales, and falls on 1 March, the date of Saint David's death in 589 AD. The feast has been regularly celebrat ...

(1 March) complete with leek-wearing effigies of Welshmen. 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

{{Ethnic slurs English folk songs English children's songs Traditional children's songs Songs about fictional male characters Songs about crime Cultural depictions of Welsh men Regional nicknames 1780 songs English nursery rhymes Year of song unknown Songwriter unknown