Tamara,
Taffy was a welsh man,
I took the piece of beef,
And threw it at his head.
That would most probably be a chant for a ball game I reckon.
Why do you reckon so?
Mainly because we did have numerous rhymes for ball games where the
ball was thrown AT someone on the last word of the ditty.
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 :)
I found this fascinating, for the game you describe is virtually the
same as what we knew as "Drop the hanky" and I'm sure we had a chant
for that too, but it wasn't yours and I can't for the life of me
remember it now.
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" :)
I'd say you're pretty spot-on there.
David in Ballarat
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