Taffy was a Welshman
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Script error: No such module "Infobox".Template:Template otherScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". "Taffy was a Welshman" is an English language nursery 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" (Script error: No such module "IPA".) 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:
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 level of violence in the poem increased:
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.[3]
Notes
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- Pages with script errors
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- Music infoboxes with malformed table placement
- English folk songs
- English children's songs
- Traditional children's songs
- Songs about fictional male characters
- Songs about crime
- Cultural depictions of Welsh people
- British regional nicknames
- 1780 songs
- English nursery rhymes
- Year of song unknown
- Songs with unknown songwriters
- 1780s quotations
- Quotations from music