Smells

In order to give my main character Anya/Judith the skills to allow her to manufacture medicines and creams, I decided that she should train as a perfumer. As a perfumer she learns how to distill essential oils, make creams and powders - all essential if she is to make medicines.

I've had tremendous fun researching both traditional medicine and perfume making. I spent several days in the Bodleian Library in Oxford calling up new and old books on the subjects. Both disciplines have ancient roots and are linked to alchemy. Both of course use a range of materials: flowers, bark, seaweed, animal fats, incense. And they both use copper alembic such as the one shown above.

She also needed to have an excellent sense of smell. And as she is narrator, that meant the story is full of description of smells. All of which was tremendous fun to write. But I decided not to just leave it at that, as I will tell you in my next post.