EELS! EELS! EELS!
Quality A4 Print by @fen.folk

The Fens used to be teeming with eels. They were so central to life in the area that the city of Ely/Isle of Ely gets its name from them. ‘Ely’ comes from the Anglo-Saxon word ‘Eilig’ or the Old Northumbrian ‘ēlġē’, which means ‘district of eels’. That’s how deeply embedded these slippery creatures were in the identity of the place.

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 even got in on the action, trading eels for the stone used to build their grand cathedral. That’s right, the very stones of Ely Cathedral were bought with eels—a testament to the eel’s value in the local economy.

And it wasn’t just Ely. The Doomsday Book, that monumental survey of medieval England, lists 77 fisheries in Lincolnshire, with many of them paying tribute in eels. We’re talking anywhere from 1,500 to 2,500 eels a year. So, eels weren’t just slipping through the waters of the Fens; they were slipping through the very veins of the local economy, a wriggly currency that built cathedrals and paid debts.