Stora Skuggan - Hexensalbe

Hexensalbe - witches' flying ointment - was a hallucinogenic salve used in medieval witchcraft, a mixture of poisonous ingredients that produced ecstatic trances and powerful sensations of flight. Stora Skuggan renders this dark, transgressive history as a fragrance: herbal, earthy, and deeply strange.

"In rifleing the closet of the ladie, they found a pipe of oyntement, wherewith she greased a staffe, upon which she ambled and galloped through thick and thin, when and in what manner she listed" - Proceedings Against Dame Alice Kyteler, Prosecuted for Sorcery, 1324

Hexensalbe was a mixture of extremely poisonous ingredients. The drug produced an ecstatic trance with powerful sensations of flying, images of otherworldly creatures and a primal sexual hunger - hallucinations at the core of the mythology of witches. Given which aspects of this story have survived into the modern image of witches, and what has been suppressed, it would seem that the one thing more terrifying than witches or devils, is female sexuality.

Fragrance family: Dark herbal chypre
Top: Wormwood, Salty Liquorice
Mid: Tuberose, Rosemary, Angelica, Belladonna
Base: Black Hemlock, Lichen, Patchouli
Who it's for: Those who want a fragrance with genuine darkness and historical depth - not for the faint-hearted, and all the better for it.
You might also like: Silphium, Mistpouffer