Eel (b)
Fishing Village
This north east fishing village was a place to come and forget. Two millennia ago the Emperor himself had come to bathe in its waters. Deep underground lay old household gods which had at one time offered protection from pirates and disease. Now holiday makers came here to leave behind a world which squandered blood, sweat and tears. Industry, agriculture and war were all benefiting from nimble fingers, docile minds and small young bodies. It was too much for the privileged to bear and canicular days by the sea brought welcome amnesia and amusement. The promenade was full of sweet things to eat and a cobbled slipway led down to a sandy beach. The Prime Minister complained that the villagers sought little else other than to amuse themselves. In so doing, he mistook the villagers for the visitors.
Old Nowhere would sit on her haunches at the front door of her little cottage. The teeth in her head had been replaced by hairs on her chin. She could often be seen smoking a pipe and peering into the horizon. Nowhere was too old for labour so she made a living by plaiting live eels in a bucket for the amusement of a fashionable crowd. There were three eels called Past, Present and Future. As the old woman plaited them she would tap her feet and croon, 'At first, I only had been here. Now, I’m here still. Soon, I won’t be here yet.' It was tricky not harming the slitherers with her barnacled hands. A glistening black breathing braid is more beautiful and lucrative without blood. At the end of the show, the entertained would toss a few coins and careless wishes into the bucket. Nowhere appeared in many travel journals as living the simplest and most poetic of lives. Nobody saw her crawl back into the ocean every evening to pray to the eels’ souls. She would ask forgiveness for the miserable existence she was forced to keep them in. She would plead poverty and cry that she only had her own shadow to support her and keep her company in old age.
Artist: Melissa Martin
Fish Profile
European Eel - Anguilla anguilla
Conger Eel - Conger conger
Conservation status
There are around 800 species of Eel. In the UK, the two most common are the European Eel and the Conger Eel.
The MCS advise avoiding these species as they both have ‘significant environmental concerns’. The ‘European Eel is critically endangered. Even the farming of eels relies on catching juveniles from the wild and growing them in captivity, which adds pressure to wild populations’. Likewise Conger Eels ‘have very low resilience to fishing and spawn only once’.
The IUCN also place European Eels on the Critically Endangered list and Greenpeace have all Eels on their Red ist. As Greenpeace state ‘overfishing has contributed to its severe decline in many regions. Some regulations are now in place to try to aid the recovery of eels.‘