"Taffy Was A Welshman" historical trivia

[Watchman]

I couldn't tell if Bill made this up or not, so I Googled it and sure enough: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taffy_was_a_Welshman

"Taffy was a Welshman"
Roud #19237
Written by: Traditional
Published: c. 1780
Written:   England
Language: English
Form: Nursery Rhyme

"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*....

The term "Taffy" may be a merging of the common Welsh name "Dafydd" 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....[Verses snipped]...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.

*And its Roud #19237 is listed directly after "Row, Row, Row Your Boat"!

Go to the Wikipedia entry if you want to read more trivia, verses, and alternate versions of the verses. (Alternate versions of anti-Welsh folk songs: the literary precursor to demo tapes & remixes?)

At first I even suspected this Wikipedia entry was bogus, created by a Rifftrax fan as determined to revise Wiki-history as the Colbert Nation.

I'm sure literary & folk music scholars could have extensive debates over the true origin of "Taffy Was A Welshman". There's plenty more results on Google.

What I'd like to know is: who on the Rifftrax staff owns "The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes"? Yes, they could've just found it on Google, but I like to picture Bill reading this by firelight on a cold Minnesota winter evening:

[TeamHarpo]

I know I'm late, but thanks for posting.  Sadly I don't know any Welshmen, but now I would like to.