Candles

I’ve been given a present, a lovely scented present, a candle… and it’s a different sort of candle because instead of a string wick it has a wooden wick. As this wooden wick burns it crackles, and it’s a perfumed candle so there’s a lovely scent of ‘sweet lime gelato, raspberry, yuzu and sparkling orange. A yuzu is a Japanese citrus fruit, I’ve discovered.

Going back not so many years, candles were used just for illumination – sometimes in elaborate holders and candelabra, but when my mum was a child there was no electricity in the cottage where the family lived in the small village of Pavenham, and they took an oil lamp upstairs to bed or sometimes – and I guess when money was tight, a candle. When my parents were first married there was a fashion for putting candles in old Chianti bottles, letting the wax dribble down the sides – I think this was thought of as very modern!.I’m guessing this was a time in the late 50’s when people were beginning to invite friends round for meals again, after rationing ended, and they were trying to make an inexpensive table decoration! There was a phase I remember of making decorative candles, using different dyes to stain the, and dribbles of wax down the sides. Now candles are found, not just on birthday cakes but in jars and tins, and even milk bottles is the fashion, and my candle is in an attractive jar with a wooden lid.

The word comes from Latin candela which just meant a light or a torch. The Romans and before them the Etruscans had wax candles, but the Greeks didn’t – they had oil lamps. There are plenty of phrases and sayings associated with candles, ‘holding a candle to someone’, candle in the wind,, burning the candle at both ends, not worth a candle, Candlemass the religious feast and Candlemass the Swedish doom metal band… and then there’s this:

http://https://youtu.be/pV1IP4N9ajg