PBP - Dragon's Blood

Half a week late, but here it is.

When I buy incense, it seems there are two types of scents: natural scents with "real" names, like sandalwood and juniper, and artificial scents with "catchy" names, like fairy dust and nirvana.

However, all vendors seem to carry three scents: frankincense, myrrh, and dragon's blood.

Many people have heard of frankincense and myrrh as the gifts given to baby Jesus by the Three Wise Men. The third gift was gold, and all three gifts were considered to have equal value.

While frankincense and myrrh have been burned as sacred incense in Europe and the Middle East for thousands of years, India and China used dragon's blood, my personal favorite of the three.

To anyone who's never heard of these scents, they can probably figure out that "frankincense" is an incense, although they'll probably think it's a mixture of scents. It's a "Frankenstein's Monster" of incense. I assumed that until I read about it.

There are a lot of Christmas time sketch comedy where the cast makes fun of the Wise Man who brought myrrh. Usually the jokes are along the lines of "What the Hell is myrrh?" Few people will look more deeply into it than that.

Dragon's blood had the best public relations team. For years I thought it was an artificially crafted incense with a catchy name. It's actually a red resin that, when melted, looks like deep red blood. In my experience, it gives off the strongest, most pungent scent that fills the room rather quickly. When I moved out of my old apartment, I was still able to smell traces of dragon's blood near where my censer was almost a week later. I couldn't smell any of the others.

Dragon's blood has been used in medicines for ages. Some people believe that it is a good scent for aromatherapy. Scientists are researching its use as an anti-diarrhea medication.

Even though I know it's just the name and look, I still think dragon's blood is a good offering for Ares and Eris.^{pbp-dragonsblood-fn1} This isn't UPG or anything like that; I just find it fitting.

The ancient Romans used to confuse dragon's blood with cinnabar, another substance that looks much like dragon's blood in its natural resin form. The problem with that is cinnabar is the natural ore of mercury (the chemical element, not Hermes's Roman analog). Needless to say, trying to burn mercury and inhaling the fumes is not a good idea.

^{pbp-dragonsblood-fn1} Yes, I know about Maxim 80, but I have my reasons. Also, I've read that it's a bad idea to snub Eris. You may have head of one such incident; it's called the "Trojan War."