Hi all you lovely people! 🙂
Today I’d really like to share with you all this incredibly beautiful song by Plu. It is a traditional one, and it’s very beautiful as such in itself and very much resonates with my brain, but it’s even more so and feels even deeper in Plu’s arrangement. I translated the title of this song as longing because that’s what the word hiraeth is usually translated as, but really as I’ve written several times before, this word doesn’t have a proper equivalent in English. I find hiraeth very interesting and I’ve tried explaining and defining what it means, for example in this post with another song about hiraeth. You can also find more about it in this post by Ceri Davies from which also comes the English translation below.
Gold fades and silver fades
Velvet fades silk fades
Every sort of clothing fades
And yet hiraeth doesn’t fade
Great Hiraeth cruel hiraeth
Hiraeth tears at my heart
When I’m sleeping deeply at night
Hiraeth comes and wakes me
Hiraeth hiraeth away away
Don’t weigh so heavily on me
Go a little nearer to the edge
Let me have a little bit of sleep
My Inner MishMash 
Emilia:
I got the impression that the H-word was about nostalgia; homesickness; home; hearth.
And a little bit of angst as well.
I would also say that is it a great part of “what makes Wales Wales”.
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Yes, people do use these words a lot to describe it. Angst… not entirely sure if that is also part of the picture, I mean it certainly can be but not sure if it always is and if it has to be for it to be hiraeth. And it is definitely an. important part of Welsh culture and Welshness, so much so that I’ve seen explanations of hiraeth that define it only as a feeling that you get in relation to Wales, as in that it’s only hiraeth when one feels it specifically towards Wales if it’s one’s homeland.
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