Page:Dan McKenzie - Aromatics and the Soul.pdf/84

72 the sweetness of old country places and the efforts, not always vain, to quiet screaming country babies ! Well are they named the carminatives, acting as they do “like a charm.”

In the Æneid we are told how once upon a time his divine mother was revealed to pious Æneas by a heavenly odour, And although Lucian intimates that the gods themselves enjoyed the smell of incense, yet, according to Elliot Smith, the real object of incense-burning was to impart the body-odour of the god to his worshippers. Something of the kind, whatever the primary motive may have been, must have been needed, one would imagine, to drown the unpleasant smells from the abattoirs in the temples where the sacrificial animals were slaughtered.

The wrath of the Lord God of the Hebrews after the Flood, it will be remembered, was appeased when he smelled the sweet savour of the burnt offerings of Noah on his emergence from the Ark, The sacrifice was, of course, the meal of the god, the flesh of bullocks, rams, doves, and what not, being spiritualised by the flames and so transformed into food a spirit could absorb. The Greek gods, it is true, refreshed themselves with such ethereal delicacies as nectar and ambrosia, but they were by no means indifferent to the square meal of roast beef so punctiliously provided for