The word scar was derived from the Greek word eschara, which means “fireplace.”
Traditionally the fireplace was in the heart of the house, and around it most domestic activities took place. It provided light in darkness, warmth in bitter cold, and the sorcery of boiling water for tea and bones for stew. It was the center of family life. Children resisted slumber to play amid dancing shadows. Parents gazed into the fiery plasma with exhaustion from a day’s hard work, contemplating the evanescence of life as their eyelids became too heavy for pulleys. Elders told stories while warming their substance, as sparks drifted upwards like ancients to the heavens.
And the fireplace was a common setting for injuries, many of which resulted in wounds. These wounds eventually healed into a different sort of tissue, which in turn became so associated with the hearth that a new word morphed into being. Eschara. Scar. Healed wounds forever bound to a fireplace memory.
Pain is a powerful stimulus …