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Bayberry candles
Approx. 7½" tall by ¾" wide at base, traditionally-made hand-dipped, 100% pure bayberry-wax tapered candles. Burn for 1½ - 2 hours. [Exact shape may vary slightly due to being hand-made, and a peculiarity of the cooling properties of the wax means that they often end up slightly corrugated rather than smooth.]
Spicy-smelling candles believed to bring good fortune, especially at weddings, housewarming, Christmas and New Year. Burn to leave fantastic, gothic-looking dribbles and spikes of grey-green wax. £5.75 per pair: cheaper rates available for bulk orders.
Bayberry candles were originally made by American settlers from the wax of Myrica cerifera, the candleberry or bayberry tree, which grows in sandy areas along the North American Atlantic coast from Maryland northwards, and around Lake Erie. They have a strong spicy scent, and are popular good-luck charms in the U.S.A., particularly in New England.
They are given as favours, especially at weddings and housewarmings. Bayberry wax is sometimes a required ingredient for spells, especially spells of American origin: but even without a more formal ritual, the mere act of lighting one is a spell in itself. Lit at sunset at Christmas or on New Year's Eve, and allowed to burn all the way down, they are said to re-unite separated sweethearts and bring luck for the coming year.
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The only pure bayberry candles in Europe, made by the last candle-maker in Candlemaker Row
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a bayberry candle
burned to the socket
brings joy to the heart
and gold to the pocket
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N.B. Bayberry wax is very brittle. Push the candle straight into a candlestick socket: do not push it in with a screwing movement, nor spike it on a spike, otherwise it will probably shatter.
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There are many firms offering "bayberry candles" which contain bayberry wax mixed with beeswax or paraffin wax, or which contain bayberry essential oil mixed in with an ordinary wax base - or even ones which are just paraffin wax scented with artificial bayberry scent. But so far as I know we, the last candle-makers in Candlemaker Row, are the only company in Europe - possibly the only company anywhere outside the U.S.A. - making pure bayberry wax candles. Even in the U.S. they are quite hard to come by - and nearly always a lot dearer than ours, even allowing for the transport costs.
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