Incense in The Wind: Dragon's blood

Thursday, 14 May 2015

Dragon's blood

Dragon's blood is a resin traditionally produced from the dracaena species of tree, such as dracaena draco - which is depicted in Bosch's painting, The Garden of Earthly Delights. The resin from the dracaena tree is a lovely red colour, and has been used since at least Roman times as a dye, a medicine, a varnish and as incense. Stradivarius violins are stained with dragon's blood. Because of the demand for the resin, the price of resin from these trees is quite high, and berries from daemonoropes draco, or the dragon's blood palm, are used instead.

Dragon's blood has a great name, and a compelling appearance of dusky red. It has a long history as an incense, a medicine, and various other uses. It is a legendary and almost mythical substance, with some uncertainty as to the exact original ancient source. It comes from a variety of plants - anciently it mainly came from either dracaena cinnabari, the dragon blood tree, or dracaena draco, the Canary Islands dragon tree; modern dragon's blood mostly comes from the fruit of daemonorops draco, the dragon's blood palm, which grows in Southeast Asia.

Thomas Kinkele, the German author of Incense And Incense Rituals, says of dragon's blood: "dark/tart somewhat gum-like burnt smelling fragrance ... indecisiveness and timidity are transformed with an intense burst of fire into strength and courage". Most people generally consider dragon's blood to smell soft, sweet, slightly musky and/or earthy - a bit like amber. There may be light floral notes.

The incense is burned in some circles for its cleansing quality, also for protection and sexual potency. There are some people who think that it can be smoked as a substitute for opium. And it is also used in skin cream as an anti-aging agent.

People describe it as soft, sweet, amber-like, spicy, earthy, woody, citric, and floral. Quite a range. A number of people say the scent varies. Some say it's hard to pin down. A good description is "Warm, rich, and slightly sweet, it combines resinous and earthy undertones with hints of spice and exotic floral notes." It's interesting that the resin ranges from base, though middle, up to top notes. It is not a single scent, it is more of an accord.

I've tried it as a resin, Cleopatra Dragon Blood resin, but that was over five years ago in the early years of my journey into discovering about incense, when I knew much less than I know now. And I still know very little about burning resin. There are not many essential oils available - mostly it is sold as a fragrance oil or "magickal oil", which doesn't inspire confidence in how true to the resin those scents would be.