"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[link]

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.^[1]

Origins and history[link]

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.^[2] 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.^[1]

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.^[1]

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.^[1]

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.^[3]

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.^[1] 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[link]

Lloyd Cecil Allen (born May 8, 1950 in Merced, California) is a former pitcher for the California Angels (1969-1973), Texas Rangers (1973-1974), and Chicago White Sox (1974-1975).

In seven seasons he had an 8-25 win-loss record in 159 games, with 19 games started, 22 saves, 297⅓ innings pitched, 291 hits allowed, 183 runs allowed, 155 earned runs allowed, 19 home runs allowed, 196 walks, 194 strikeouts, 11 hit batsmen, 27 wild pitches, 18 intentional walks, and a 4.69 ERA.

External links[link]

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or The Baseball Cube, or Baseball-Reference (Minors)

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