Related products

• 

  13 December 2024 Perfume Oil

  13 is significant, whether you consider it lucky, unlucky or just plain odd. Many believe it to be unfortunate…

  … because there were 13 present at the Last Supper.
  … Loki crashed a party of 12 at Valhalla, which ended in Baldur’s death.
  … Oinomaos killed 13 of Hippodamia’s suitors before Pelops finally, in his own shady way, defeated the jealous king.
  … In ancient Rome, Hecate’s witches gathered in groups of 12, the Goddess herself being the 13th in the coven.

  Concern over the number thirteen echoes back beyond the Christian era. Line 13 was omitted form the Code of Hammurabi.

  The shivers over Friday the 13th also have some interesting origins:

  … Christ was allegedly crucified on Friday the 13th.
  … On Friday, October 13, 1307, King Philip IV of France ordered the arrests of Jaques de Molay, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, and sixty of his senior knights.
  … In British custom, hangings were held on Fridays, and there were 13 steps on the gallows leading to the noose.

  To combat the superstition, Robert Ingersoll and the Thirteen Club held thirteen-men dinners during the 19th Century. Successful? Hardly. The number still invokes trepidation to this day. A recent whimsical little serial killer study showed that the following murderers all have names that total thirteen letters:

  Theodore Bundy
  Jeffrey Dahmer
  Albert De Salvo
  John Wayne Gacy

  And, with a little stretch of the imagination, you can also fit ”˜Jack the Ripper’ and ”˜Charles Manson’ into that equation.

  More current-era paranoia: modern schoolchildren stop their memorization of the multiplication tables at 12. There were 13 Plutonium slugs in the atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki. Apollo 13 wasn’t exactly the most successful space mission. All of these are things that modern triskaidekaphobes point to when justifying their fears.

  For some, 13 is an extremely fortuitous and auspicious number…

  … In Jewish tradition, God has 13 Attributes of Mercy. Also, there were 13 tribes of Israel, 13 principles of Jewish faith, and 13 is considered the age of maturity.
  … The ancient Egyptians believed that there were 12 stages of spiritual achievement in this lifetime, and a 13th beyond death.
  … The word for thirteen, in Chinese, sounds much like the word which means “must be alive”.

  Thirteen, whether you love it or loathe it, is a pretty cool number all around.

  … In some theories of relativity, there are 13 dimensions.
  … It is a prime number, lucky number, star number, Wilson Prime, and Fibonacci number.
  … There are 13 Archimedean solids.

  AND…
  … There were 13 original colonies when the United States were founded.

  Says a lot about the US, doesn’t it?

  Thirteen scents of comfort; a supplication for safety and succor during turbulent, dark times. Warm wool, fresh baked bread, steaming black tea, and a gooey brownie spiced with fresh ginger, green cardamom, black peppercorn, coriander, clove bud, fennel, star anise, honey, and cream.

  Add to cart
• 

  Witch-Cursed Castle Perfume Oil

  You whom Haggard holds in thrall,
  Share his feast and share his fall.
  You shall see your fortune flower
  Till the torrent takes the tower.
  Yet none but one of Hagsgate town
  May bring the castle swirling down.

  Beyond the town, darker than dark, King Haggard’s castle teetered like a lunatic on stilts, and beyond the castle the sea slid. Drinn stopped him as he raised his glass. “Not that toast, my friend. Will you drink to a woe fifty years old? It is that long since our sorrow fell, when King Haggard built his castle by the sea.”

  “When the witch built it, I think.” Schmendrick wagged a finger at him. “Credit where it’s due, after all.”

  “Ah, you know that story,” Drinn said. “Then you must also know that Haggard refused to pay the witch when her task was completed.”

  The magician nodded. “Aye,” and she cursed him for his greed – cursed the castle, rather. “But what had that to do with Hagsgate? The town had done the witch no wrong.”

  “No,” Drinn replied. “But neither had it done her any good. She could not unmake the castle – or would not, for she fancied herself an artistic sort and boasted that her work was years ahead of its time. Anyway, she came to the elders of Hagsgate and demanded that they force Haggard to pay what was due her. ‘Look at me and see yourselves,’ she rasped. ‘That’s the true test of a town, or of a king. A lord who cheats an ugly old witch will cheat his own folk by and by. Stop him while you can, before you grow used to him.’” Drinn sipped his wine and thoughtfully filled Schmendrick’s glass once more.

  “Haggard paid her no money,” he went on, “and Hagsgate, alas, paid her no heed. She was treated politely and referred to the proper authorities, whereupon she flew into a fury and screamed that in our eagerness to make no enemies at all, we had now made two.” He paused, covering his eyes with lids so thin that Molly was sure he could see through them, like a bird. With his eyes closed, he said, “It was then that she cursed Haggard’s castle, and cursed our town as well. Thus his greed brought ruin upon us all.”

  In the sighing silence, Molly Grue’s voice came down like a hammer on a horseshoe, as though she were again berating poor Captain Cully. “Haggard’s less at fault than you yourselves,” she mocked the folk of Hagsgate, “for he was only one thief, and you were many. You earned your trouble by your own avarice, not your king’s.”

  Drinn opened his eyes and gave her an angry look. “We earned nothing,” he protested. “It was our parents and grandparents whom the witch asked for help, and I’ll grant you that they were as much to blame as Haggard, in their way. We would have handled the matter quite differently.” And every middle-aged face in the room scowled at every older face.

  One of the old men spoke up in a voice that wheezed and miaowed. “You would have done just as we did. There were crops to harvest and stock to tend, as there still are. There was Haggard to live with, as there still is. We know very well how you would have behaved. You are our children.”

  Weed-strewn oak, opoponax, wet stone, creaking redwood, and desolate olibanum.

  Add to cart
• 

  Pomegranate and Black Tea Perfume Oil

  Add to cart
• 

  Flower Moon 2024: Belladonna Berries and Sugared Black Tea Hair Gloss

  Out of Stock