On Aug 8, 2007, at 21:47, David in Ballarat wrote:
Candida,
Taffy was a welsh man,
Taffy was a thief.
Taffy came to my house,
And stole a piece of beef.
I went to Taffy's house.
Taffy was in bed.
I took the piece of beef,
And threw it at his head.
I'm not sure what it is supposed to mean.
That would most probably be a chant for a ball game I reckon.
Why do you reckon so? Not having grown up with the English language,
I'm naturally not very familiar with its childhood chants, unless they
appaeared in one of the Mother Gose collections and/or the Opies' book
of rhymes (or some such title. And I'd have to re-read that one, since
it's been a long time. I remember their fairy tales one better).
But Polish also has such rhymes and chants, and quite a few of them end
with something or other being thrown at the end of the ditty. The one
which was most common during my childhood (50yrs ago) went (in rough
translation; it rhymes, in Polish):
I have an embroidered handkerchief
Which has four corners.
Whomever I love, whomever I like, I'll throw it at his/her feet.
I don't love this one,
I don't like this one,
I won't kiss this one...
I shall gift the emroidered handkerchief to *you*!
It was a "select the next it" game, with everyone standing around in a
circle singing the chant, while the thrower walked inside the circle,
stopping for the next "it", when the song was over. And then the
routine started over again. The trick was to time your walking speed so
as to end in front of someone you liked -- and were willing to kiss,
after dropping the hankie at his/her feet :)
It was a game that girls liked better than the boys did but, if they
wanted us to play some of the more energetic ones (like: "who's afraid
of the blackman?", where the "monster blackman" chased everyone
allover the place, screaming and yelling nd growling, until he caught
the next "it"), they had to compromise and play some of the more quiet
games, too :)
I don't know whether Candida's rhyme was ever supposed to *mean*
anything -- most of those things seemed to care mostly about rhyme and
rhythm and only superficially about making sense -- but I'd bet it was
written by an Englishman, not a Welshman... There's nothing more
uplifting than a bit of neighbourly "love" :)
--
Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/
Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
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