Coming from southern Ontario, I go glassy-eyed over songs about the Great Lakes. I remember that I was stopped dead in my tracks the first time I heard Stan Rogers' White Squall. OK, I know it's tragic, but it really captures the temper of the Lakes, and the vessels that sail on them, and the people.

In Wales, there's a special word for that homesicky longing feeling - hiraeth. One of those words that never translates completely into English. Maybe other languages have something similar. There's a well-known folk song about it ...

Dwedwch, fawrion o wybodaeth
O ba beth y gwnaethpwyd hiraeth
A pha ddefnydd a roed ynddo
Na ddarfyddo wrth ei wisgo?

Derfydd aur a derfydd arian,
Derfydd melfed, derfydd sidan
Derfydd pob dilledyn helaeth
Eto, er hyn, ni dderfydd hiraeth.

Hiraeth mawr a hiraeth creulon,
Hiraeth sydd yn torri 'nghalon.
Pan fwyf dryma'r nos yn cysgu
Fe ddaw hiraeth ac fe'm deffry.

Hiraeth, hiraeth, cilia, cilia
Paid a+ phywso mor drwm arna',
Nesa dipyn at yr erchwyn,
Gad i mi gael cysgu gronyn.

Very roughly translated: (oh... using 'perish' in the sense of disintegration)

Tell, o great ones of knowledge, what is hiraeth made of, and what materials are used so that it doesn't perish with its wearing?

Gold perishes, silver perishes, velvet perishes, silk perishes; all garments perish and yet hiraeth does not.

Great hiraeth, cruel hiraeth, hiraeth which breaks my heart. When I am in my deepest sleep, hiraeth will come and awaken me.

Hiraeth, hiraeth, leave me, leave me. Do not weight so heavily on me. Go off to my bedside and allow me sleep. ******

Oh, lord. That's so Welsh (Celt?). Shoot me now.

Falling on the floor,
grovelling in the depths of exile
give up hope, all ye who enter here

sian