The perfect word for a familiar feeling.
What does hiraeth mean?
It’s a Welsh word which, according to one source, can be translated as follows:
“homesickness tinged with grief or sadness over the lost or departed. It is a mix of longing, yearning, nostalgia, wistfulness, or an earnest desire for the Wales of the past.”
You can, of course, feel hiraeth for times and places that have nothing to do with Wales. Anyway, it seemed the perfect prompt for a short story, although the finished piece was more memoir than fiction.
[Thank you to my friend and talented writer, Abe, from Creative Blue Balls, for bringing my attention to this indispensable word via Twitter.]
So that’s story number 27 in the bag. Only 3 more days of NaNoWriMo to go! #30days30shorts
Ruth Livingstone 