Shazam! A little festive magic...

Right, my dears, it's time for a little bit of festive comfort, a little sparkle, maybe even a little bit of festive healing. Perhaps it's time for our fairy godmother to step out from the shadows and make things just a little bit bettwr with a wave of her wand and a magic word... Something like...
SHAZAM!
Just as well then that my festive review is for that most magical of scents: Shazam from 4160 Tuesdays, and the ever talented Sarah McCartney is our Fairy Godmother.
Its a piquant scent; as sharp and bracing as the orange at the foot of your stocking and as warm and resinous as the heavily laden
Christmas tree in your sitting room.  It's the festive season in a bottle and it opens with a merry little sliver of pantomime sparkle.

Yes, there's a glitter of tangerine and a firework smokiness of basil as the curtains pull back. If you stubbornly still refuse to believe in fairy's you soon will. See, here they come dancing across the stage, luminous pastel shades like candied fruit and sugar almonds. Fairyland is enough to make your mouth water! An inner glow is taking hold, helped by that sharp nip of juniper berries that heralds after theater drinks for the grown-ups. A welcome splash of gin and tonic, like fire caught in a glass, loosening us up, bringing forth laughter. It's not quite Christmas yet though, more like the night before the night before Christmas, but the merriness has already begun.
Just as well, those cocktails haven't made us too bleary eyed (no hangovers from perfume cocktails, think of that) because we're whirling closer and closer to the big day. The tree is up and shedding it's needles sharp and ancient over the middle notes. A Christmas Carol breaking through, notes high and warm; I'm sure I hear "Oh, Christmas Tree", not the most traditional of carols but how fitting it is. And, there's a chorus of spice answering back from the kitchen. Breath in deeply and you will smell all that pepper and cardamon, even a few lingering traces of basil. There's a feast brewing up! Scents and steam rise with the choristers voices from the radio. Those voices which bring with them a suggestion of incense curling round gilded candlesticks from which wax drips and the vast stone depths of churches harbouring a little of the damp of centuries. There will be more of this to come as the darkness closes in outside and the lights come on; fairy lights in every colour imaginable and candles glowing with golden flames. Time spirals out and in, we are tugged back and forth by the time worn movies on T.V and the deeper, sung, memory of another town, lying still and dreamless on another night. You are lost in memory and reflection, until Glenda appears to wave her magic wand and Dorothy clicks her ruby slippers and before you know it, it's midnight on Christmas Eve!
You have slipped into that liminal space between mundane and miracle. Out on the tiles, the neighbourhood cats turn to each other and chat though you remain cheerfully oblivious to their gossip. Too busy venturing out of burrowing into your nice warm house for now is the hour of Midnight Mass, and whilst you may not celebrate there is something alluring about the sounds, the scents and the ritual. Inside, as the incense threads of amber and patchouli spiral in your mind they are greeted by the sweet scent of cocoa brewing on your stove top. It's as luxurious as a present and as sweet as a sugar plum. Not unlike the sugar plum fairy's which will soon be dancing in your head as you lie yourself down for a long winters sleep (all credit to Clement Moore). Tomorrow there will be stockings full of parcels and plum pudding, but tonight there are fairy tales to dream.

Perfume Notes:

Top

Basil, Tangerine, Juniper Berry

Middle

Atlas Cedar, Pink Pepper, Cardamon, Olibanum

Base

Amber, Patchouli, Cacao.

This post is dedicated to Robert Herrmann, a wonderful friend, who was always so kind about my blog posts. 

A Midsummer love story...

by Holly Cox

Roses.

Dense and deep at the heart of the wood roses grew. White roses mingled with red roses whose sharper thorns tore the petals of the white. They seemed to spread and flex the moment anyone drew close.

When Jean was young and filled with curiosity he would run off into the woods and play beneath the branches of the rose bushes.

Time and again he pestered the woodsman Franz until he told him the story of those roses.

'At the center of those roses,' Franz said, 'there lies a sleeper.'

'A tomb?' Jean asked. He knew the soft words people said when they meant death. He could imagine how a tomb, once lovingly planted with roses, could become so overgrown.

'No,' Franz said. 'A sleeper; one day, someone will approach and wake him.'

'Oh?' Jean was not sure he believed this story but he wanted to believe it.

'At the center of those roses, so they say, lies an enchanted Prince,' the woodsman frowned and hefted his axe. 'But who knows if the story is true or not.'

'Have you never seen it for yourself?'

'No, the roses will not let me near.' The woodsman gestured for Jean to watch as he swung his axe down on the mass of roses which strayed over the borders of the path. They swayed for a second and then, where the blade had struck, fresh shoots erupted each tipped with a tight red bud.

'Whatever lies within, it is touched by magic. That much I know for sure. The woodsman hefted his axe onto his shoulder and walked away humming an old country wedding tune. Yet it seemed to Jean that he the roses whispered to him, whenever he drew near he heard them saying;

‘Come to me, my love. Come to me.’

Jean stayed a moment longer and then he had gone home into the setting sun.

Years passed. Jean grew out of his habit of playing in the woods and applied himself to his studies instead. He forgot the roses and the woodsman's fairy tale till one evening, Midsummer Eve as it so happens; returning home from the University at which he studied Jean had cause to pause in the shade of those woods. He should have hurried through them, for at night the trees creaked and the shadows howled and it was all too easy to lose ones way. Ah, but Jean was a rational young man, student bold and brave. Jean did not hurry.

The roses were still there; growing in greater abundance than before. They bowed invitingly to Jean as he approached. The blooms so vivid; so mingled in their red and white he could not resist temptation but reached out a finger to touch them. The rose he touched was white as snow but beneath his finger it flushed as bright as a maiden's cheeks. How beautiful Jean thought and he touched the next bloom and the next till they were all flushed beneath his hand. Flushed their petals fell. With a creak the stems of the roses drew back. Dry bark sighed against dry bark. How could this be? Jean reached out again. He touched the bark of a branch but it shrank away from him. He watched the branches wither and part into the unmistakable shape of a passageway.

He recalled the story and he hesitated. One day, someone would come to awaken the Prince. However, even if there was any truth in the story that person would not be him. He was not a prince or even a nobleman. No, he was a poor student who would, in the fullness of time, inherit a bakery in the town.

Yet the roses parted to grant him entry.

He put one foot on the hearth and then, feeling a little bolder, he stepped all the way into the passageway. It was dark ahead of him; he put out his hand to feel the way and felt the rose thorns prick his skin. He feared that the entrance would vanish behind him; he feared that the roses would swallow him up but the woods remained behind him, twilight blue and full of noises. He took a few slow steps forward; he felt the prick of thorns with each step. There was a light up ahead, a flickering lantern flame whose light fell on a stone wall and a door of metal furnished oak.

There was a ring on the door and he reached for it. The door fell open at his touch. Dust hung in the air before him, bright sparks in the light of torches that ringed the walls of a large circular chamber. At the center of the room stood a dais draped in velvet which must once have been sublime but had succumbed to the passage of time and hung in dusty folds. All of this must have been here for some time yet the torches still burned and perfume scented the air.

'It cannot be.' Jean said to himself and he half expected that it would all fall away then like the figments of a dream. Nothing moved. He looked at the dais again and he saw, resting on the velvet, an object both beautiful and horrible: a glass coffin. Within the smooth crystal walls he could make out the shape of a body. Jean stepped back, he did not mind admitting that even his rational mind was afraid of the decay time must have wrought. However, fascination got the better of him. He stepped forward and was astounded to see the body of a young man about his own age and still very much whole. There were spices and solutions he reminded himself that could make a body seem whole for centuries. A clever trick, so carefully done in this instance that he could have sworn the young man was alive. Dark curls tumbled around a fresh face with flushed pink cheeks and lips red as cherries. Jean's footsteps echoed on the floor as he moved closer. He saw the hands of the Prince folded at his waist. He saw the Princes clothes, the style two or three hundred years out of style. He must have lain here that long at least. Jean brushed a little dust from the lid of the coffin. As he did so the whole coffin fell to snow and blew about the room leaving nothing between him and the Prince.

It must have been very fragile after all this time and shattered, Jean told himself. After all, glass does not turn to snow.

He could have sworn he saw the Prince's lips part a little revealing moist pearly teeth. The Prince's nose twitched with breath. Jean leaned forward and stared at these signs of life. He must have lost his footing for a second because in a second his own lips touched the Princes lips; lips deceptively hot as blood. He drew back, reached for the handkerchief in his pocket and dabbed at his lips. He was not a superstitious man in the habit of kissing dead lips and relics.

'At last,' a soft voice whispered, 'you have come!'

The Prince's dark eyes were open and his mouth curved into a smile. He spoke in the most beautiful voice and with each word the roses that choked the windows fell away with a great rustle of leaves. 

'I knew you would come,' The Prince said. His lips pressed; warm, against Jean’s lips. Jean’s arms slowly moved to enfold the prince. Outside the windows of the tower, the roses died away to a last few delicate blooms and the moonlight fell cool upon the tower floor.

On Midsummer Night, by the light of the moon, Jean and the Prince talked and embraced until 

falling asleep, on the cusp of dawn, the sunlight of the longest day found them and warmed them as 

one.   

©Holly Cox 2019