Imagine this: The Fens, this sprawling, watery landscape, teeming with eels. We’re talking about so many eels that the city of Ely is literally named after them.
‘Ely’ comes from the Anglo-Saxon word ‘Eilig’ or the Old Northumbrian ‘ēlġē’, which means ‘district of eels’. That’s how central these eels were.
Now, for the fen folk, eels were more than just a slithery snack. They were a form of currency. Imagine going to your landlord, and instead of handing over cash, you give him a ‘stick of eels’. Not a literal stick, mind you, but about 25 eels tied together. "There you go, Brian, that’s this month’s rent. Mind the wriggling!"
The monks from Ely Cathedral got in on this eel action too. They were so slick with their trades that they swapped eels for the stone used to build their towering cathedral. Just picture that negotiation. "Father, how many eels for a ton of stone? 50? 75? Ah, let’s settle on 100 and a blessing for good measure."
And it wasn’t just Ely getting in on the eel economy. The Doomsday Book, which is like the medieval version of the Yellow Pages, lists 77 fisheries in Lincolnshire. These fisheries weren’t paying taxes with boring old coins, oh no. They were handing over eels. Thousands of them. We’re talking 1,500 to 2,500 eels a year. That’s a lot of wriggling to account for. Imagine the tax collector’s office. "Bob, did you count the eels?" "Yeah, but they keep slipping out of the bucket!"
So there you have it. Eels weren’t just slipping through the waters of the Fens; they were slipping into the economy, building cathedrals, and paying rents. A slimy, slithery currency that’s more slippery than an accountant with a bag of eels.
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