The Kale of Wales: Abram Wood, the Welsh Gypsies and a Language That Vanished

Apr 11

17 min read

Updated: 1 day ago

Old black and white photo of a Romani family group standing beside a horse-drawn wagon in the Welsh countryside, with a man on horseback

In November 1799 the vicar of Llangelynnin, a tiny church on the Meirionnydd coast, wrote a burial into his register. The dead man was Abram Wood, and the entry described him simply as a travelling Egyptian. Locals called him the King of the Gypsies. He'd walked into Wales around seventy years earlier with his family and their belongings strapped to donkeys, and by the time he was buried his descendants were well on the way to becoming the most famous musical dynasty in the country, and the best-known family of Welsh Gypsies there's ever been.

Family tree of Teulu Abram Wood showing Abram Wood, his son Valentine, the harpist Jerry Bach, John Roberts Telynor Cymru, Edward Wood, Matthew Wood and Matthew’s sons Harry and Howell

They were the Kale, the Welsh Gypsies. Over the next 150 years they'd play for Queen Victoria, win eisteddfod after eisteddfod, keep the Welsh triple harp from dying out and hang on to a version of Romani older than anything else spoken in Britain. Then, within living memory, that language disappeared.

Darllenwch yr erthygl yn Gymraeg ar waelod y dudalen. (Scroll down for this article in Welsh.)

Quick Answers

Who are the Kale? A Romani group, often called the Welsh Gypsies or Teulu Abram Wood, mostly descended from Abram Wood's family, who settled in Wales from around 1730.
What does Kale mean? It comes from the Romani word for black, and it's what the group called themselves.
What language did they speak? Welsh Romani, an old form of British Romani mixed with Welsh and English words.
Is Welsh Romani still spoken? No. The last fluent speakers died in the 1960s.
What are they famous for? Music, above all the Welsh triple harp and the fiddle.

Who Were the Welsh Gypsies?

The Kale (sometimes written Kalé) are a Romani people whose roots go all the way back to northern India, like every other Romani group in Europe. Romani families had reached Britain by the early 1500s, and the Welsh soon had their own word for them, Sipsiwn. As with the English Gypsy, it came from the old and completely wrong belief that they'd come from Egypt, which explains why a Welsh vicar was still calling Abram Wood an Egyptian at the very end of the 18th century.

Welsh Kale families gathered beside horse-drawn wagons at a camp

The name they used for themselves was different. Kale comes from the Romani word for black, and it set the Welsh families apart from their English cousins, the Romanichal, who mostly stayed east of the border. They're close relatives of the Kaale of Finland and the Calé of Spain too, which tells you a lot about how far these communities had travelled.

What makes the Welsh story unusual is how much of it comes back to one family. So many Welsh Gypsies were descended from Abram Wood that Teulu Abram Wood, Abram Wood's Family, became a catch-all Welsh phrase for Romani people in general.

Abram Wood, the King of the Gypsies

Family tradition says Abram arrived in Wales around 1730, coming up from the south west of England. He moved north into the mountains of Snowdonia and mid Wales, and his children and grandchildren spread out across Llanidloes, Llanbrynmair, Machynlleth, Bala and Aberystwyth. Some bought land and settled. Others kept travelling the same circuits of farms and market towns for generations.

He's also the man usually credited with bringing the fiddle to Wales. That's almost certainly an exaggeration, since Wales already had its own bowed instruments like the crwth, but he and his sons definitely made the fiddle a fixture at Welsh dances and fairs.

Three Kale men sitting on the ground at a camp, one in a straw hat

His end wasn't very regal. One family story says he died in a cowshed on the slopes of Cadair Idris. He was buried at St Celynnin's church in Llangelynnin, where a gravestone right outside the church porch marks his reputed grave, and the parish register dates the burial to 12 November 1799.

Weathered gravestone of Abram Wood, King of the Gypsies, in the churchyard of St Celynnin's church at Llangelynnin, Gwynedd — Abram Wood's reputed grave at Llangelynnin. Photo: Hefin Richards, CC BY-SA 2.0

It's a fitting resting place for a man who turned into a piece of Welsh folklore. Wales is good at turning real people into legends, and some of its oldest are in the Mabinogion.

If you go digging in old newspapers you'll find another Abraham Wood, also described as a Gypsy, who was hanged at Gloucester in 1737 for robbing a fellow Gypsy called Henry Lovel on the highway. He left behind a confession mostly about other people's horse and sheep thefts. There's nothing linking him to Wales and it wasn't an unusual name, but it's a handy reminder to be careful with family trees built on names alone.

A Family of Harpers

Abram's son Valentine was the first of the family to take up the Welsh triple harp, a fiendishly difficult instrument with three rows of strings, and he taught his own sons. That's where the family's reputation really took off. Valentine's son Jeremiah Wood Jones, known as Jerry Bach, spent around fifty years as the resident harpist for the Pryse family at Gogerddan near Aberystwyth before he died in 1867.

A young Kale woman in a cardigan and patterned skirt sitting in a wagon doorway

The Wood family history pages at Valley Stream list harper after harper. John Wood Jones, Abram's great-grandson, won the silver harp at the Brecon eisteddfod and played for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at Buckingham Palace in 1843. Edward Wood, who lived at Bala and Ruthin, played for Victoria too and for the future Edward VII. Bala's got more than one famous name from this era, as the story of John Jones, the Little Welsh Terror, shows.

The triple harp was going out of fashion in the 19th century, pushed aside by the louder pedal harp, and the Kale families were among the few still playing it properly. Without them it might well have vanished.

John Roberts, Telynor Cymru

The biggest star of the lot was John Roberts. He was born in 1816 at Llanrhaeadr near Denbigh, and his mother Sarah was a Wood, the daughter of William Wood. He married into the family a second time in 1836, when he wed Eleanor, Jerry Bach's daughter, so Wood music ran through both sides of his house. His entry in the Dictionary of Welsh Biography says he spent about nine and a half years in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and as a young drummer in the regiment he got to play for the teenage Princess Victoria several times before she was queen.

After leaving the army he settled in Newtown in Montgomeryshire, and in 1850 he moved his young family into a small house on Frolic Street, where he stayed for around forty years. He won the triple harp prize at the Abergavenny eisteddfod in 1842, took the chief prize there in 1848 and won again at Cardiff in 1850. He played for Grand Duke Constantine of Russia at Aberystwyth and for the King of Belgium at Swansea, and he spoke Welsh, English and Romani fluently.

His children formed a family band, the Original Cambrian Minstrels. Their big moment came in August 1889, when Queen Victoria visited Palé Hall near Llandderfel and John was hired to play for her. Newtown's heritage trail says it was a band of nine harps, John with seven of his sons and a nephew. It's often repeated that he played with nine sons, but the numbers don't quite work.

He was given the bardic title Telynor Cymru, Harpist of Wales. After a small stroke in December 1893 he gave his triple harp to his friend Nicholas Bennett of Glanrafon, and he died on 11 May 1894. He's buried in St David's churchyard in Newtown, where you can still see his grave.

The Welsh Romani Language

Music is the part of the story most people know, but the Kale's language is arguably the bigger deal. Welsh Romani, which speakers sometimes called Romanus, kept far more of the old Romani grammar than the English Gypsies' speech did. By the late 1800s most Romanichal in England were speaking Angloromani, which is basically English with Romani words dropped in. The Woods were still speaking the real thing.

Sepia photo of a Romani family gathered outside a bender tent

It had picked up plenty from its neighbours though. English gave it words like yelma for elm, spīdra for spider and wåntas for to want. Welsh gave it krīavóla for rowan (from criafolen), muŋa for a horse's mane (from mwng) and tišas for to sneeze (from tisio).

Linguists still class it as part of the northwestern group of Romani dialects, and the University of Manchester's Romani dialects project lists it with English and Welsh as its two main contact languages. Nearly everything we know about it comes from one man.

John Sampson and the Woods

John Sampson was the librarian at Liverpool University and a leading light of the Gypsy Lore Society. He rented a house in Betws Gwerful Goch and spent decades recording the speech of the Wood family, mainly with Edward Wood and Matthew Wood. Matthew, one of Abram's great-great-grandsons, couldn't read or write but was a brilliant storyteller, and Sampson wrote down his folk tales word for word in Romani.

The result was The Dialect of the Gypsies of Wales, published by Oxford's Clarendon Press in 1926. Its subtitle called it the older form of British Romani preserved in the speech of the clan of Abram Wood. It was reviewed in Nature that August and it's still the main reference for the language. The painter Augustus John tagged along on at least one visit to Matthew Wood's family with Sampson, and his letters about it are held at the National Library of Wales.

Not everyone sees Sampson as a hero though. Frances Roberts Reilly, a descendant of Abram Wood, argued in Critical Romani Studies in 2021 that Sampson treated the family as specimens of a pure Gypsy race and paid little attention to how his work affected their lives. She links that romantic idea of the true Gypsy to later council policies that pushed families into houses and split them up, which carried on into the 1970s.

The Last Speakers

Matthew Wood's sons were some of the last people to grow up speaking Welsh Romani. Harry Wood took the nickname Turpin after the highwayman and played fiddle in the pubs around Betws Gwerful Goch. His brother Howell was a famous clog dancer, and he turns up dancing on a table in The Last Days of Dolwyn, the 1949 film that gave Richard Burton his first screen role.

A man in a trilby and neckerchief sitting with two young boys beside a painted wagon

Howell died in 1967. Myths, Legends and Oddities of North East Wales says he's thought to be the last fluent speaker to leave North Wales, and with his generation the language that Sampson had spent his life recording went too. It survives now only in books, a few word lists and family memory.

Nansi Richards and the Harp's Second Life

The harp tradition fared better. Nansi Richards was born in 1888 at Pen-y-bont-fawr in Montgomeryshire, and Gypsy families regularly camped for long stretches on her parents' farm. She won the triple harp competition at the National Eisteddfod three years running from 1908, played at 10 Downing Street for Lloyd George and went on to perform for President Calvin Coolidge in America.

Her Dictionary of Welsh Biography entry says she named those Gypsy visitors as one of the biggest influences on her playing, and that without them the triple harp might have died out. Through her, the music of Abram Wood's family passed to a whole new generation of Welsh harpists. She died in 1979 and she's buried at Pennant Melangell.

If you like this side of Welsh history, it sits alongside other customs that only just survived, like the Mari Lwyd horse skull tradition, which a preacher once tried to stamp out for good.

Why the Welsh Gypsies Still Matter

Most Romani history in Britain is a story of being moved on, fined and written about by outsiders. The Kale's story has plenty of that too, but it's also one of a family that became part of Welsh culture without ever quite disappearing into it. They played at the same eisteddfodau as everyone else, took Welsh words into their own language and kept an old instrument alive when the Welsh themselves were losing interest in it. Wales had a habit of making room for outsiders who didn't fit the usual mould, whether that was Abram Wood's family or the Ladies of Llangollen, who set up home together in a Welsh cottage in the 1780s while Abram was still on the road.

A man in a straw hat riding a horse along a road

The language has gone, but the names haven't. Woods, Roberts, Ingrams, Prices and Lees with Kale ancestry are still around, and if you hear a triple harp played at an eisteddfod today there's a good chance the tune came down through Abram Wood's family.

Yn Gymraeg: Kale Cymru, Teulu Abram Wood a'r Iaith a Ddiflannodd

Ym mis Tachwedd 1799, ysgrifennodd ficer Llangelynnin, eglwys fach ar arfordir Meirionnydd, gladdedigaeth yn ei gofrestr. Abram Wood oedd y dyn marw, ac roedd y cofnod yn ei ddisgrifio'n syml fel Eifftiwr teithiol. Roedd pobl leol yn ei alw'n Frenin y Sipsiwn. Roedd wedi cerdded i mewn i Gymru tua saith deg mlynedd ynghynt gyda'i deulu a'u heiddo wedi'u clymu ar gefn asynnod, ac erbyn iddo gael ei gladdu roedd ei ddisgynyddion ar y ffordd i ddod yn deulu cerddorol enwocaf y wlad, a'r teulu mwyaf adnabyddus o Sipsiwn Cymru erioed.

Nhw oedd y Kale, Sipsiwn Cymru. Dros y 150 mlynedd nesaf bydden nhw'n chwarae i'r Frenhines Victoria, yn ennill eisteddfod ar ôl eisteddfod, yn achub y delyn deires rhag marw ac yn dal gafael ar ffurf ar y Romani a oedd yn hŷn nag unrhyw beth arall a siaredid ym Mhrydain. Yna, o fewn cof, diflannodd yr iaith honno.

Pwy oedd Sipsiwn Cymru?

Pobl Romani yw'r Kale (a ysgrifennir weithiau'n Kalé), ac mae eu gwreiddiau'n mynd yn ôl i ogledd India, fel pob grŵp Romani arall yn Ewrop. Roedd teuluoedd Romani wedi cyrraedd Prydain erbyn dechrau'r 1500au, a chyn hir roedd gan y Cymry eu gair eu hunain amdanyn nhw, Sipsiwn. Fel y gair Saesneg Gypsy, daeth o'r hen gred gyfeiliornus eu bod wedi dod o'r Aifft, sy'n esbonio pam roedd ficer o Gymro yn dal i alw Abram Wood yn Eifftiwr ar ddiwedd y 18fed ganrif.

Roedd yr enw a ddefnyddient amdanynt eu hunain yn wahanol. Daw Kale o'r gair Romani am ddu, ac roedd yn gwahaniaethu'r teuluoedd Cymreig oddi wrth eu cefndryd yn Lloegr, y Romanichal, a arhosodd ar y cyfan i'r dwyrain o'r ffin. Maen nhw'n perthyn yn agos i'r Kaale yn y Ffindir a'r Calé yn Sbaen hefyd, sy'n dangos pa mor bell roedd y cymunedau hyn wedi teithio.

Yr hyn sy'n gwneud stori Cymru'n anarferol yw faint ohoni sy'n dod yn ôl at un teulu. Roedd cymaint o Sipsiwn Cymru yn ddisgynyddion i Abram Wood nes i Teulu Abram Wood ddod yn ymadrodd cyffredin yn Gymraeg am bobl Romani yn gyffredinol.

Abram Wood, Brenin y Sipsiwn

Yn ôl traddodiad y teulu, cyrhaeddodd Abram Gymru tua 1730, gan ddod i fyny o dde-orllewin Lloegr. Symudodd i'r gogledd i fynyddoedd Eryri a chanolbarth Cymru, a gwasgarodd ei blant a'i wyrion ar draws Llanidloes, Llanbrynmair, Machynlleth, y Bala ac Aberystwyth. Prynodd rhai dir ac ymgartrefu. Daliodd eraill i deithio'r un cylchdeithiau o ffermydd a threfi marchnad am genedlaethau.

Ef hefyd yw'r dyn sy'n cael y clod fel arfer am ddod â'r ffidil i Gymru. Gor-ddweud yw hynny bron yn sicr, gan fod gan Gymru ei hofferynnau bwa ei hun eisoes, fel y crwth, ond fe wnaeth ef a'i feibion y ffidil yn rhan annatod o ddawnsfeydd a ffeiriau Cymru.

Doedd ei ddiwedd ddim yn frenhinol iawn. Yn ôl un stori deuluol, bu farw mewn beudy ar lethrau Cadair Idris. Cafodd ei gladdu yn eglwys Sant Celynnin, Llangelynnin, lle mae carreg fedd yn union y tu allan i borth yr eglwys yn nodi'r man y credir iddo gael ei gladdu, ac mae cofrestr y plwyf yn dyddio'r gladdedigaeth i 12 Tachwedd 1799.

Os ewch chi i dyrchu mewn hen bapurau newydd, fe welwch Abraham Wood arall, a ddisgrifiwyd hefyd fel Sipsi, a gafodd ei grogi yng Nghaerloyw ym 1737 am ladrata oddi ar gyd-Sipsi o'r enw Henry Lovel ar y briffordd. Gadawodd gyffes a oedd yn sôn yn bennaf am bobl eraill yn dwyn ceffylau a defaid. Does dim i'w gysylltu â Chymru ac nid oedd yn enw anarferol, ond mae'n atgof defnyddiol i fod yn ofalus gyda choed teulu sydd wedi'u seilio ar enwau'n unig.

Teulu o Delynorion

Valentine, mab Abram, oedd y cyntaf o'r teulu i ddysgu'r delyn deires, offeryn anodd dros ben gyda thair rhes o dannau, a dysgodd ei feibion ei hun. Dyna pryd y dechreuodd enw da'r teulu go iawn. Treuliodd mab Valentine, Jeremiah Wood Jones, a elwid yn Jerry Bach, tua hanner can mlynedd yn delynor i deulu Pryse yng Ngogerddan ger Aberystwyth cyn iddo farw ym 1867.

Enillodd John Wood Jones, gor-ŵyr Abram, y delyn arian yn eisteddfod Aberhonddu a chwaraeodd i'r Frenhines Victoria a'r Tywysog Albert ym Mhalas Buckingham ym 1843. Chwaraeodd Edward Wood, a oedd yn byw yn y Bala a Rhuthun, i Victoria hefyd ac i'r darpar Frenin Edward VII.

Roedd y delyn deires yn mynd allan o ffasiwn yn y 19eg ganrif, wedi'i gwthio o'r neilltu gan y delyn bedal uwch ei sain, ac roedd teuluoedd y Kale ymhlith yr ychydig a oedd yn dal i'w chwarae'n iawn. Hebddyn nhw, efallai y byddai wedi diflannu'n llwyr.

John Roberts, Telynor Cymru

Seren fwyaf y cyfan oedd John Roberts. Cafodd ei eni ym 1816 yn Llanrhaeadr ger Dinbych, ac roedd ei fam Sarah yn un o'r teulu Wood, yn ferch i William Wood. Priododd i mewn i'r teulu am yr eilwaith ym 1836, pan briododd Eleanor, merch Jerry Bach, felly roedd cerddoriaeth y Woods yn llifo trwy ddwy ochr ei aelwyd. Treuliodd tua naw mlynedd a hanner yn y Ffiwsilwyr Cymreig Brenhinol, ac fel drymiwr ifanc yn y gatrawd cafodd chwarae i'r Dywysoges Victoria ifanc sawl gwaith cyn iddi ddod yn frenhines.

Ar ôl gadael y fyddin ymgartrefodd yn y Drenewydd, Sir Drefaldwyn, ac ym 1850 symudodd ei deulu ifanc i dŷ bach ar Stryd Frolic, lle arhosodd am tua deugain mlynedd. Enillodd wobr y delyn deires yn eisteddfod y Fenni ym 1842, cipiodd y brif wobr yno ym 1848 ac enillodd eto yng Nghaerdydd ym 1850. Chwaraeodd i'r Archddug Constantine o Rwsia yn Aberystwyth ac i Frenin Gwlad Belg yn Abertawe, ac roedd yn siarad Cymraeg, Saesneg a Romani yn rhugl.

Ffurfiodd ei blant fand teuluol, yr Original Cambrian Minstrels. Daeth eu cyfle mawr ym mis Awst 1889, pan ymwelodd y Frenhines Victoria â Neuadd Palé ger Llandderfel a chafodd John ei gyflogi i chwarae iddi. Band o naw telyn oedd e, sef John gyda saith o'i feibion a nai iddo. Mae'n aml yn cael ei ailadrodd ei fod wedi chwarae gyda naw o feibion, ond dyw'r rhifau ddim yn gweithio'n iawn.

Cafodd y teitl barddol Telynor Cymru. Ar ôl strôc fach ym mis Rhagfyr 1893 rhoddodd ei delyn deires i'w gyfaill Nicholas Bennett o Lanrafon, a bu farw ar 11 Mai 1894. Mae wedi'i gladdu ym mynwent Eglwys Dewi Sant yn y Drenewydd, lle gallwch weld ei fedd hyd heddiw.

Iaith Romani Cymru

Y gerddoriaeth yw'r rhan o'r stori y mae'r rhan fwyaf o bobl yn ei gwybod, ond gellir dadlau mai iaith y Kale yw'r peth pwysicaf. Roedd Romani Cymru, a elwid weithiau'n Romanus gan ei siaradwyr, wedi cadw llawer mwy o hen ramadeg y Romani na lleferydd Sipsiwn Lloegr. Erbyn diwedd y 1800au roedd y rhan fwyaf o'r Romanichal yn Lloegr yn siarad Angloromani, sef Saesneg gyda geiriau Romani wedi'u taflu i mewn. Roedd y Woods yn dal i siarad y peth go iawn.

Roedd wedi codi digon gan ei chymdogion hefyd. O'r Saesneg daeth geiriau fel yelma am lwyfen, spīdra am bry copyn a wåntas am eisiau. O'r Gymraeg daeth krīavóla am gerddinen (o criafolen), muŋa am fwng ceffyl (o mwng) a tišas am disian (o tisio).

Mae ieithyddion yn dal i'w dosbarthu fel rhan o grŵp gogledd-orllewinol tafodieithoedd y Romani, gyda'r Saesneg a'r Gymraeg yn brif ieithoedd cyswllt iddi. Mae bron popeth rydyn ni'n ei wybod amdani'n dod o un dyn.

John Sampson a'r Woods

John Sampson oedd llyfrgellydd Prifysgol Lerpwl ac un o hoelion wyth y Gypsy Lore Society. Rhentodd dŷ ym Metws Gwerful Goch a threuliodd ddegawdau'n cofnodi lleferydd teulu Wood, yn bennaf gydag Edward Wood a Matthew Wood. Doedd Matthew, un o or-or-wyrion Abram, ddim yn gallu darllen nac ysgrifennu ond roedd yn storïwr gwych, ac ysgrifennodd Sampson ei chwedlau gwerin air am air yn Romani.

Y canlyniad oedd The Dialect of the Gypsies of Wales, a gyhoeddwyd gan Wasg Clarendon Rhydychen ym 1926. Roedd ei is-deitl yn ei disgrifio fel ffurf hŷn ar Romani Prydain a gadwyd yn lleferydd llwyth Abram Wood. Cafodd ei adolygu yn y cylchgrawn Nature y mis Awst hwnnw ac mae'n dal i fod yn brif gyfeirlyfr yr iaith. Aeth yr arlunydd Augustus John gyda Sampson ar o leiaf un ymweliad â theulu Matthew Wood, ac mae ei lythyrau am y peth yn cael eu cadw yn Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru.

Nid pawb sy'n gweld Sampson fel arwr, cofiwch. Dadleuodd Frances Roberts Reilly, un o ddisgynyddion Abram Wood, yn y cyfnodolyn Critical Romani Studies yn 2021 fod Sampson wedi trin y teulu fel enghreifftiau o hil Sipsi bur heb dalu fawr o sylw i sut roedd ei waith yn effeithio ar eu bywydau. Mae hi'n cysylltu'r syniad rhamantus hwnnw o'r gwir Sipsi â pholisïau cynghorau diweddarach a wthiodd deuluoedd i mewn i dai a'u chwalu, polisïau a barhaodd tan y 1970au.

Y Siaradwyr Olaf

Roedd meibion Matthew Wood ymhlith y bobl olaf i dyfu i fyny'n siarad Romani Cymru. Cymerodd Harry Wood y llysenw Turpin ar ôl y lleidr pen ffordd, a byddai'n chwarae'r ffidil yn y tafarndai o gwmpas Betws Gwerful Goch. Roedd ei frawd Howell yn ddawnsiwr clocsiau enwog, ac mae i'w weld yn dawnsio ar fwrdd yn The Last Days of Dolwyn, y ffilm o 1949 a roddodd ei ran gyntaf ar y sgrin i Richard Burton.

Bu farw Howell ym 1967. Credir mai ef oedd y siaradwr rhugl olaf i adael Gogledd Cymru, a chyda'i genhedlaeth ef aeth yr iaith yr oedd Sampson wedi treulio'i oes yn ei chofnodi. Dim ond mewn llyfrau, ambell restr eiriau a chof teuluol y mae hi wedi goroesi bellach.

Nansi Richards ac Ail Fywyd y Delyn

Bu traddodiad y delyn yn fwy ffodus. Ganwyd Nansi Richards ym 1888 ym Mhen-y-bont-fawr, Sir Drefaldwyn, ac roedd teuluoedd o Sipsiwn yn gwersylla'n rheolaidd am gyfnodau hir ar fferm ei rhieni. Enillodd gystadleuaeth y delyn deires yn yr Eisteddfod Genedlaethol dair blynedd yn olynol o 1908, chwaraeodd yn 10 Downing Street i Lloyd George ac aeth ymlaen i berfformio i'r Arlywydd Calvin Coolidge yn America.

Dywedodd mai'r ymwelwyr hynny o blith y Sipsiwn oedd un o'r dylanwadau mwyaf ar ei chwarae, ac oni bai amdanyn nhw efallai y byddai'r delyn deires wedi marw. Trwyddi hi, trosglwyddwyd cerddoriaeth teulu Abram Wood i genhedlaeth newydd gyfan o delynorion Cymru. Bu farw ym 1979 ac mae wedi'i chladdu ym Mhennant Melangell.

Pam Mae Sipsiwn Cymru'n Dal yn Bwysig

Stori am gael eu symud ymlaen, eu dirwyo a chael eu disgrifio gan bobl o'r tu allan yw'r rhan fwyaf o hanes y Romani ym Mhrydain. Mae digon o hynny yn stori'r Kale hefyd, ond mae hefyd yn stori am deulu a ddaeth yn rhan o ddiwylliant Cymru heb erioed ddiflannu'n llwyr iddo. Roedden nhw'n chwarae yn yr un eisteddfodau â phawb arall, yn cymryd geiriau Cymraeg i mewn i'w hiaith eu hunain ac yn cadw hen offeryn yn fyw pan oedd y Cymry eu hunain yn colli diddordeb ynddo.

Mae'r iaith wedi mynd, ond mae'r enwau wedi aros. Mae teuluoedd Wood, Roberts, Ingram, Price a Lee gyda thras Kale yn dal o gwmpas, ac os clywch chi delyn deires yn cael ei chwarae mewn eisteddfod heddiw, mae siawns dda bod yr alaw wedi dod i lawr trwy deulu Abram Wood.

Cwestiynau Cyffredin

Ydy Sipsiwn Cymru'r un fath â Theithwyr Gwyddelig? Nac ydyn. Pobl Romani yw'r Kale, gyda gwreiddiau yng ngogledd India, tra bod Teithwyr Gwyddelig yn grŵp ar wahân o dras Wyddelig gyda'u hiaith eu hunain, Shelta. Mae'r ddau'n grwpiau ethnig cydnabyddedig yn y DU, ac mae ffigurau'r cyfrifiad yn aml yn eu cyfrif gyda'i gilydd, a dyna o ble mae llawer o'r dryswch yn dod.

Ai'r Sipsiwn ddaeth â'r delyn i Gymru? Na. Roedd telynorion yng Nghymru ymhell cyn i Abram Wood gyrraedd, a daeth y delyn deires ei hun o'r Eidal yn y 1600au. Yr hyn a wnaeth teulu Wood oedd cadw'r delyn deires i fynd yn y 1800au, pan oedd y rhan fwyaf o delynorion Cymru wedi troi at y delyn bedal.

Ble mae Abram Wood wedi'i gladdu? Ym mynwent eglwys Sant Celynnin yn Llangelynnin, ar yr arfordir ger Llwyngwril yng Ngwynedd. Mae'r bedd y credir mai ei fedd ef ydyw yn union y tu allan i borth yr eglwys, ac mae cofrestr y plwyf yn cofnodi ei gladdu ar 12 Tachwedd 1799.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are Welsh Gypsies the same as Irish Travellers?

No. The Kale are Romani, with roots that go back to northern India, while Irish Travellers are a separate group with Irish origins and their own language, Shelta. Both are recognised ethnic groups in the UK, and modern census figures often lump them together, which is where a lot of the confusion comes from.

Did the Gypsies bring the harp to Wales?

No. Wales had harpers long before Abram Wood arrived, and the triple harp itself came over from Italy in the 1600s. What the Wood family did was keep the triple harp going in the 1800s, when most Welsh players had moved on to the pedal harp.

Where is Abram Wood buried?

In the churchyard of St Celynnin's church at Llangelynnin, on the coast near Llwyngwril in Gwynedd. His reputed grave is right outside the church porch, and the parish register records his burial on 12 November 1799.