The Gypsy family of Abram Wood first arrived in Wales in the eighteenth century, a tawny-skinned people speaking a language close to Hindi and Sanskrit. Welsh society found their customs strange and sometimes unacceptable. The family included such colourful characters as Abram Wood himself, their chieftain, who always rode a pedigree horse but died in a cowshed on the slopes of Cader Idris; Silvaina, who was feared as a witch and who insisted that Robin her mule could understand every word of her Romani speech and Harry, who tried to emulate his idol Dick Turpin by riding a farm horse madly around a field. The Wood family, from Abram to the twentieth century, also provided Wales with many famous skilled harpists and fiddlers who performed Welsh music.

The Gypsy family of Abram Wood first arrived in Wales in the eighteenth century, a tawny-skinned people speaking a language close to Hindi and Sanskrit. Welsh society found their customs strange and sometimes unacceptable. The family included such colourful characters as Abram Wood himself, their chieftain, who always rode a pedigree horse but died in a cowshed on the slopes of Cader Idris; Silvaina, who was feared as a witch and who insisted that Robin her mule could understand every word of her Romani speech and Harry, who tried to emulate his idol Dick Turpin by riding a farm horse madly around a field. The Wood family, from Abram to the twentieth century, also provided Wales with many famous skilled harpists and fiddlers who performed Welsh music.