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Word of the Day – Hiraeth

By April 24, 2015Word of the Day

Hiraeth (noun) (Welsh)

Heer-eye-th

A deep homesickness; an intense form of longing or nostalgia for a place long gone, or even an unaccountable homesickness for a place you have never visited.

I love words that have no English alternatives and as such this is one of my favourite Welsh words. I think Val Bethell says it better than I ever could…

I know the meaning of the Welsh word – ‘Hiraeth’. This has pulled at me all my life. I would happily travel west, but north, south or east was so difficult. I lived in a beautiful home on the edge of Wales, looking west. The mountains shouted hiraeth, hiraeth! Silently and patiently.

One day as my material life allowed I was able to obey the call. Eureka! I now know, yes I know what it means. Hiraeth is in the mountains where the wind speaks in many tongues and the buzzards fly on silent wings. It’s the call of my spiritual home, it’s where ancient peoples made their home. We’re high on a hill, where saints bathed sore feet in a healing spring and had a cure.
It’s from this spring we use the water for our spiritualist church. It made a baby laugh that brought joy to a congregation.

A little gathering of people – we are free-thinking and believe that man makes his own choices on earth and thinks of his God in a way he personally feels comfortable with.

What would my dear agnostic Welsh father think of that?

Hiraeth – the link with the long-forgotten past, the language of the soul, the call from the inner self. Half forgotten – fraction remembered. It speaks from the rocks, from the earth, from the trees and in the waves. It’s always there.

Yes, I hear it.

Yes, I understand what hiraeth means.

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