The Eternal King

[Casablanca]

The Old King is sacrificed, dismembered, and returned to the earth so the land may be renewed and nourished.

The death knell of the Old Order so life may begin anew: juniper and yew berry, black pine, white sage, soil, and pyre smoke.

Fresh on my wrists, the Eternal King is black pine, dark juniper, and woody yew berries swirling with a ghostly sage smoke. As the blend starts to dry, I also start to smell black, hard-packed soil.

And then the yew berries mostly take over, upon drydown, as they did on me in that earlier moon, Bergelmir. Eternal King dries into yew berries and black earth.

The Eternal King begins with the mood of a dark mystery. It's like a found-footage reel showing nothing but a shaking view of shadows and smoke in the woods at night, with some running and panting (and falling). It's not footage that answers any next-morning investigator questions about where all the screaming kids went and what's with the burnt effigy and large footprints.


I wish I were drawn to the way yew berries smell on my skin. We don't seem to quite love each other, so I think the decant will be enough. But I'll hope for sage and smoke and conifers together again sometime.

[zankoku_zen]

Dark pine, juniper, sage and dirt. This smells like dark Christmas forest. You know, a dark pine forest, snow on the ground and wind howling. It's not safe to be out. Good throw and wear length.

[annemathematics]

 

very evocative [lightly-] smokey black-sticky soil in a sunless evergreen forest scent. I love this. everything about it is nocturnal, powerful, slightly primal. the air around the hunter in the susan cooper's the dark is rising book would smell like this. ancient magic swirling about during a rite. swooon!