The Goblin Rider

[Katherynne]

In the dark shadow of the grove, on the margin of the brook, he beheld something huge, misshapen, black and towering. It stirred not, but seemed gathered up in the gloom, like some gigantic monster ready to spring upon the traveller.

The hair of the affrighted pedagogue rose upon his head with terror. What was to be done? To turn and fly was now too late; and besides, what chance was there of escaping ghost or goblin, if such it was, which could ride upon the wings of the wind? Summoning up, therefore, a show of courage, he demanded in stammering accents-"Who are you?" He received no reply. He repeated his demand in a still more agitated voice. Still there was no answer. Once more he cudgelled the sides of the inflexible Gunpowder, and, shutting his eyes, broke forth with involuntary fervor into a psalm tune. Just then the shadowy object of alarm put itself in motion, and, with a scramble and a bound, stood at once in the middle of the road. Though the night was dark and dismal, yet the form of the unknown might now in some degree be ascertained. He appeared to be a horseman of large dimensions, and mounted on a black horse of powerful frame. He made no offer of molestation or sociability, but kept aloof on one side of the road, jogging along on the blind side of old Gunpowder, who had now got over his fright and waywardness.

Ichabod, who had no relish for this strange midnight companion, and bethought himself of the adventure of Brom Bones with the Galloping Hessian, now quickened his steed, in hopes of leaving him behind. The stranger, however, quickened his horse to an equal pace. Ichabod pulled up, and fell into a walk, thinking to lag behind-the other did the same. His heart began to sink within him; he endeavored to resume his psalm tune, but his parched tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and he could not utter a stave. There was something in the moody and dogged silence of this pertinacious companion, that was mysterious and appalling. It was soon fearfully accounted for. On mounting a rising ground, which brought the figure of his fellow-traveller in relief against the sky, gigantic in height, and muffled in a cloak, Ichabod was horror-struck, on perceiving that he was headless!-but his horror was still more increased, on observing that the head, which should have rested on his shoulders, was carried before him on the pommel of the saddle; his terror rose to desperation; he rained a shower of kicks and blows upon Gunpowder; hoping, by a sudden movement, to give his companion the slip-but the spectre started full jump with him. Away then they dashed, through thick and thin; stones flying, and sparks flashing at every bound. Ichabod's flimsy garments fluttered in the air, as he stretched his long lanky body away over his horse's head, in the eagerness of his flight.

The scent of fear, and terrifying pursuit: wind-whipped, chilly night air, oppressive black pine, globs of dark opopponax, and bleak cedar, and distant, unreachable church incense.

I've never done a first review before.

Review:
The label on this is all dark and blue-y artwork. It's definitely gorgeous. So far I am really into these Sleepy Hollow bottles' artwork!

In the Bottle: High, cold, forests. I'm not getting much incense in the bottle. It's definitely dark and sleek, absolutely reminiscent of fear itself.
Wet: Hello ozone! This smells WONDERFUL wet, it's got a ton of throw and the woods are really coming together. The church incense is barely lurking, it's probably feeling a little swallowed by the opopponax. For the record? I love opopponax. This scent is heavy, almost like it's bearing down on you with the ferocity of its chill.
Drydown: Frankincense? Is that frankincense? It smells a bit like mass, with which I am much more than down. On the drydown it seems like that distant incense is coming a little closer, but it's remaining high, cold, and shrouded in forests. I am in love with this.
Throw: Good-to-strong. It starts off with this awesome POW and on the drydown it's still strong, but it's not slapping my surroundings with its might.
Overall: FAN-BLOODY-TASTIC. This is everything I had hoped for and more.
Keep or Swap?: I'm keeping this so hard I might buy a second bottle.

[myth]

Bleak pencils!

 

Ok, but no really, I love it. But yeah, this is the cedar that makes people think of pencils, in case someone was wondering. I love cedar! I love pencils. Can I even smell the graphite?

 

I am all about dark resins and wood. This scent is... sleek. It's not heavy enough to be black... it's the light-absorbing sheen of graphite, the silvery suede of weathered wood. It's grey that's not quite black, not quite silver, that you just can't quite focus on because the little bit of light it reflects shifts and dances.

 

Thankfully I don't at all get what I think of as ozone. No soap, no whiff of cheap men's cologne.

 

Black pine? Hmmm... have to say no. Love pine, not finding it here. Opoponax = myrrh... this is a dark variety then, there's no greenness here as sometimes found in light myrrhs. During dry-down it blends well into the scent and melds with the incense impression. Late in dry down I can smell a tinge of its warmth remaining after the chill has departed.

 

Overall this is wood and incense. The darkness is ephemeral and does not weigh you down, the scent is surprisingly light in throw and wearlength. It is a perfect winter scent for me.

 

To my nose it shares similarity with The Pit and the Pendulum.

[sarada]

When I tried this at will call it smelled a bit more airy and light than it does in its final form. And I adore it -- this is a serious contender for the sarada hall of fame.

 

Beneath a swirl of cool air I catch the very realistic scent of pine/fir resin (which I smear on myself straight from the tree whenever I see globs of it) and the warm, simmering resins of something like Midnight Mass or Cathedral along with a fresh-cut wood. All wonderful, wonderful things. A perfect mixture of green fir, deep natural sweet resin and its cousin in a censer in a dark wooden church -- with that freshly hewn wood scent beneath.

 

Not quite as strong as the church resin scents; instead of being contained just within the vaulted cathedral ceiling, this is open to the night air, with a thick evergreen forest all around. It doesn't have a pine scent so much as the thick dollop of sweet resin beneath the boughs. And yes I love the scent of lumber and pencils! Can't be missed, if you like wood and resin scents. It is different enough from the others in this family to deserve a place of singular honor in your collection!

[sarahmarie]

Oh oh oh. Um. I am taken aback! This is pretty great! It's light in terms of the weight of the scent, but perfectly evokes a windy, autumnal darkness. It reminds me of Alecto, but without the heavier sweetness and foodiness of that scent. If you have ever liked an airy, woodsy scent, you should definitely try this one. It's amazing.

[Pottersville]

I was a little fearful of this one myself, since I've never had much luck with wind/atmosphere scents (ozone = evil!) but it's really quite incredible. If opopponax, cedar, and incense could ever be "light", this is it. It really does smell as if the Goblin Rider has passed by and you can just catch a whiff of his scent. There might be another bottle in my future!!

[iiinterstate]

I used to be crazy about ozone, and then got a little sick of it. Now it's been long enough that I like it again.

 

This blend is quite unlike anything else I own, that much is clear.

 

Wet: Ozone-y pine, mostly.

 

After a few minutes: Oh good, the pine is chilling out a bit. Now there is more opoponax. I really don't get any cedar at all, which is just fine.

 

I like this blend, it's different, and I love me some opoponax. I'll have to decide how often I'll wear it before I decide if I want a bottle or not, though.

[Gwydion]

In bottle: boot polish and incense. Wet: Chilly breezes, forest, and incense. Some of this wood smells polished rather than wild. This is softer than I expected, but not in a bad way. I think it’s the incense mitigating the harsher notes. I am loving the ozone with wood and incense effect. Dry: There is something faintly rotten under the wood. I’m guessing it’s the opopponax. It defiantly suits the concept. This is icidious and appealing. The autumn woods aspect lingers pleasantly after the lighter aspects wear away without the whole thing getting overbearing.

[tinyvulture]

a heavy, dark and masculine scent. church incense (think Cathedral) drifts among the pine and cedar. then there’s the strong ozone note, which really makes this scent unique. it truly does smell of the chilly outdoors, the forest air at night. i typically don’t care for ozone because it turns really sweet on my skin, but that’s not happening here. it’s actually the tiniest bit lemony, but that’s okay.

[Little Bird]

The 'chilly night air' in this worried me, as ozone always turns to dryer sheets on my skin. The Goblin Rider doesn't smell soapy or at all like dryer sheets on me, though (yay!). Mostly I get a crisp, clean pine smell from this, mixed with the dry cedar and a smooth, resinous quality that reminds me of Cathedral. Cedar sometimes smells awful on me, but I like the dry, almost spicy type of cedar that's in this (reminds me of clean hamster bedding, which is a smell that I actually like).

 

I tend to really like blends of woods, incense, and resins, so The Goblin Rider smells great to me. The resins are smooth, the incense is a bit sweet, the pine adds a great chill, and the cedar adds a warmer, spicy sort of quality.

 

I only have a decant of this right now, but I'm definitely going to get a couple bottles of this before the Halloween blends leave town.

[greenranger]

Cold pine and cedar and faint incense. The cedar is the strongest note, but the whole scent is light to moderate strength on me.

 

I was worried about the chilly night air, but, I should not have. There's only enough to keep the scent cool, rather than being warm resin/incense/wood.

[fairnymph]

Sniffed at EC Will Call: Dark, intense, evergreens, smoke and incense - totally fits notes which are distinct yet work harmoniously together - reminds me of a darker, more masculine version of The Illustrated Woman.

[dawndie]

Wet: Storm Moony ozone

 

On skin: blast of ozone with a bloop of resin

 

Half-hour later: not much morph, soapy light ozone floating above resiney incense

 

In conclusion: I liked this a lot more than I thought I would; reminds me of the Cracked Bell. The incense and "chilly night air" is a good combo. Probably not bottle-worthy but I'm definitely keeping the decant.

[jade_starlight]

This is exactly what it says it is; dark, cold forests. It really does smell like you're riding through the woods at night with the wind whipping through your hair. This would be an excellent winter scent.

[Iceblink]

Ozone, incense, and above all CEDAR. I love the woodsiness. This would smell terrific on a guy.

[jewelbug]

Imp: A cool evergreen scent.

 

Wet: Lots of chilly pine with a sweetness to it. Maybe even a hint of lemon?

 

Dry: The cedar gets stronger, but still there’s a balance of pine, something light and citrusy (I dunno, maybe its ozone/air?), and pine. Its actually a pretty light scent, compared ot what I was expecting. Eventually, this settles into a light airy cedar with a drop of myrrh. Lasts about 5 hrs.

 

Overall: Pretty, masculine to my nose, and much lighter than I expected. Still, not something that would find its way into my rotation, so I'll pass it on.

[Athenae]

I had high hopes for the oppoponax, one of my favorite notes, but unfortunately on me the ozone does what ozone always does and it went soapy and sharp on my skin. Bummer.

 

A.

[Champagne]

It`s evergreen that recedes fast leaving place to the spires of incence in the dark, and reappear again to stay. It`s very light and highly evocatice of a slow, magical ride in a silent, dewy and damp forest.

[sookster]

straight sniff from imp is cedary ozone...rather d00d-ish...

 

once applied i detect some pine in here...not something that i

am very fond of but the boy will smell just divine when i dab it on him

[tartchef]

There's something about Goblin Rider that reminds me somewhat of Kathmandu... the sweet pine/ceadry incense. There's definitely a smack of ozone in here, too, but not quite as sharp & man-fume-y as I was expecting. This is working much, much better than I'd anticipated - a cool, dark, incense-&-pine-boughs scent. Very nice - not enough to keep, but I'm glad I braved it.

[starwild]

Going on, this is frighteningly dark and almost vertiver-like, but once it hits my skin it turns into murky pines under a chilly full moon night. I can almost see the Goblin Rider there, just an outline, lurking in the darkness.

 

As it warms up on my skin...well, it doesn't really ever warm up, it's cool all the way through, but now I get a whiff of that church incense, but the combination of the woodsy notes and the incense makes it scarier.

 

Total yum, really spooky. Very glad to have this for Halloween! This will probably be what I'll wear.

 

The night air is tempting me to go for a bottle. I think this is one for the wishlist.

Edited October 4, 2008 by starwild

[juniperus]

bottle: black, wet, evergreen forst-y. oooh, very dark.

wet: the incense is coming out to play (yay!)

dry: incensey and woody and resiny and eee! I am so loving this...it's dark and subtle

later: subtle and balanced and dark and... I need to go find a man to put this on...

[blackenedsoul]

This one's definitely goin to the boyfriend. To me, this is not a very unisex scent. It screams cedar and pine in the bottle... on me it's got that piney tang with a twinge of oppoponax. Goblin Rider is light for such a foreboding scent (if that makes any sense to you at all).

[Phaedra]

Wet this is cedar and pine. First on it's cedar mixed with sweet woods. After a couple of minutes the whole scent starts to blossom into a very autumnal blend- a mix of woods and leaves. Then the sweetness starts to develop too. After a couple of hours, this had faded dramatically leaving almost no scent behind. Strange. There is a faint lingering creaminess as it dries down. I don't really get any of the incense note but maybe that will get stronger as it ages? This is definitely an autumn scent. Nice!

[indybear]

In the imp: Pine and not much else

Wet: Still very piny, but as it dries, the cedar starts to peek out.

Dry: This becomes a much more complex scent as it dries. At first, it's all pine and cedar. As time passes, the incense comes out but I don't get any ozone, more just a chilliness.

 

This is a great scent. It's definitely on the heavy side on my skin. I can see this being a go-to midwinter scent.

[rayvn1]

This is the hit of the Sleepy Hollow Halloweenies so far! I love this one I get just about every note loud and clear except for the "distant" church incense. It's thick and dark, but far more wearable than Shattered Pumpkin on me. Reminds me a bit of Ligur which I also love! Lasts a decent amount of time too.