House of the Dragon’s season 3 premiere gave fans a lot to talk about, but there was one unexpected question fans can’t stop asking following the premiere: What in the world was Ormund Hightower sniffing?
Amid the action-packed premiere, House of the Dragon introduced a key player from Fire & Blood with the arrival of Ormund Hightower. In the brief scene, Alicent sends a letter to Ormund informing him not to march on the capital with his force of 15,000 to defend the city from Rhaenyra and her dragons and to instead set up camp and wait for Aemond and Vhagar to arrive.
When Ormund exits his tent to greet the letter carrier, we see him make a disgusted face as he then brings an intricate silver sphere up to his face and sniffs its contents before opening the letter. It was a scene that might have been brief in nature, but Ormund’s actions quickly turned heads and left fans wondering what exactly he was sniffing.
While the show does not answer this question, history and context clues from the scene seem to hold the answer as to what Ormund was sniffing and why he was sniffing the contents of the object.
Ormund Hightower was sniffing from a medieval pomander
Although it was easy to jump to the assumption that Ormund was sniffing a drug of some kind, which many did, it appears that Ormund Hightower was actually using a perfumed medieval pomander. So what exactly is a medieval pomander, and why would he have been using it?
Pomanders were small, often ornate containers that were filled with some combination of aromatic mixtures with ingredients such as cloves, cinnamon, herbs, resins, and musk. They were commonly used among nobility and clergy and were used primarily to help mask odors at a time when many cities had strong and unpleasant smells due to poor sanitation. This is something we saw in Ormund’s debut, but the moment was so subtle it went under our radar.
When Ormund pulled out his pomander and took a sniff of its contents, he did so after emerging from his tent and meeting with the letter carrier – a man who looked quite filthy and likely didn’t smell the greatest. It seems that Ormund used his pomander’s aromatic mixture to help mask the scent of the man, which certainly says a lot for Ormund as a character and could be foreshadowing he’s not a fan of the common folk.
Much like the one we saw Ormund using, pomanders were often designed as round metal spheres, often crafted in silver or gold, and were designed to be worn as pendants or rings or to be attached to belts. As we saw, Ormund wears his attached to his belt, making it easily accessible to him when he’s around odors that aren’t exactly pleasant.
We’re certain to see Ormund using his pomander again through the season, as Westeros isn’t exactly the cleanest place. It is interesting that he’s the first character in House of the Dragon who has used a pomander, as we imagine he’s not the only one who isn’t a fan of the odors of the city. We’ll see if this comes into play for a particular reason as the season progresses, but he clearly has a sensitivity to smell and isn’t a fan of odors.
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