‘I Am a Mermaid, an Odd Creature’: Maritime Metaphors and Cultural Heritage Well-Being

Maritime cultural heritage is often perceived as distant or inaccessible: hidden beneath the surface or lost beyond the horizon. Yet in everyday language and imagery, maritime metaphors are frequently used to articulate life experiences, abstract thoughts, and emotions. This article explores the well-being affordances of metaphorised maritime cultural heritage, focusing on the emotional and symbolic meanings of maritime metaphors, heritage as an affective practice, and the use of maritime heritage objects as prompts in self-reflective writing. The research was conducted through a bibliotherapeutic workshop for a group of volunteers. The workshop combined autobiographical writing with sensorial engagement with authentic maritime cultural heritage objects. Findings indicate that maritime-related metaphors and historically significant objects elicit a wide range of strong emotional responses and personal autobiographical reflections. This study offers new insights into the affective and therapeutic dimensions of maritime cultural heritage. It highlights how heritage-linked emotions are shaped through complex, individual processes, in which cultural heritage operates in dynamic interaction with the observer’s lived experience.