Surprised Eel Historian, PhDさんのイラストまとめ

Eels' slipperiness is the basis for about the only eel metaphor we still have in modern English. And it's also the basis for the oldest eel metaphors!

In the 5th C. BCE, the Greek poet Simonides wrote that a slippery character is “like an eel down in the slime."

And that's bad.

What's in this bag? Is it snakes? Is it eels? Is it marriage? John More (d.1530) knew.

More said that choosing a bride is like reaching into a bag of snakes & eels (at a 7:1 snake-to-eel ratio) & hoping you grabbed an eel.

This saying became quite popular in 16th C London. 1/3

Do you want a story? About eels & faith? Drought & death? Fishing? Alright then!

In his Historia Ecclesiastica, Bede tells us aout Bishop Wilfrid's conversion of the South Saxons, who were having problems with their eels.

And you know: eel problems are *real* problems. 1/7

The 4th of July Commandment.

The damp hay or moss helps them keep breathing, & they don't run out of air in the barrel. So..that's how you move your live eels.

Unless you're the Dutch. Then you put them in the holds of well ships and bring them over to England by the ton.

But that's a different story. /fin

Aaannddd...that does it for this evening. Thank for all of your questions! If Stuffus didn't get to you inquiry, don't despair. Perhaps next time he'll smile more kindly on your fate!

Some rents called for payments of 10s of thousands of eels. How were they counted? Most often, in units called sticks and binds.

1 stick = 25 eels
1 bind = 10 sticks (250 eels)

The term "stick" likely comes from the number of eels you can smoke on a stick at one time. 2/4

I have an interview this afternoon that I'm getting ready for, and I don't really have the bandwidth for an eel tweet today. So, instead, here are some of my favorite eels that my kids have made for me over the years.

Enjoy!

@Cruithneach I do! I don't know the citation for it, which is too bad. But here you go:

A quick note here...the roll actually counts a combined total of 14,600 *binds*, which is 365 million eels.

This seems improbably for a bunch of reasons, & it's likely that someone has mistaken binds for sticks.

Scribes, man. Always putting you in a bind.
/fin