Eel

The eel, popularly known for the electrical properties of some species, has been credited with many marvelous virtues. If left to die out of the water, its body steeped in strong vinegar and the blood of a vulture, and the whole placed under a dung-hill, the composition is said to be able to raise from the dead anything brought to it and give it life as before. It has also been said that anyone who eats the still-warm heart of an eel will be seized with the spirit of prophecy and will predict things to come.

Eels figure in the folklore of many countries. The Egyptians worshiped the eel, which their priests alone had the right to eat. In Polynesian, Melanesian, and Indonesian stories, men are sometimes transformed into eels. In the Philippines, eels were believed to be the souls of the dead. In New Zealand, an eel head was eaten to cure toothache. In other countries, eel skins were laid on wounds to heal them. In the United States, there was a folk tradition that eels eat human flesh, and some fishermen were reputed to have caught large quantities of eels with human bait.

In the eighteenth century, magic eels were made of flour and the juice of mutton. There is an anecdote told by William of Malmesbury about a dean of the church of Elgin, in the county of Moray in Scotland, who, having refused to cede his church to some pious monks, was changed, with all his canons, into eels, which the brother cook made into a stew.

eel / ēl/ • n. a snakelike fish (order Anguilliformes, esp. the family Anguillidae) with a slender elongated body and poorly developed fins. ∎  used in names of unrelated fishes that resemble the true eels, e.g., electric eel, moray eel.DERIVATIVES: eel·like / -ˌlīk/ adj.

eel A long thin fish, Anguilla anguilla; the conger eel is Conger myriaster. Eels live in rivers but go to sea to breed. A 100‐g portion is a rich source of protein, niacin, and vitamins A, D, and B₁₂; a good source of niacin and vitamin B₂; a source of vitamins B₁ and B₆; contains 20 g of fat and supplies 300 kcal (1260 kJ).

eel Marine and freshwater fish found worldwide in shallow temperate and tropical waters. Eels have snake-like bodies, dorsal and anal fins continuous with the tail, and an air bladder connected to the throat. Length: up to 3m (10ft). Types include freshwater, moray and conger. Order Anguilliformes.

eel. OE. ǣl = OS., OHG. āl (Du., G. aal), ON. áll :- Gmc. ǣlaz, of unkn. orig.