Meme. Part of Wencelaus Hollar's 1647 city view map of London, showing the Thames and the bank at Queenhythe. In the middle of the image are two ships, at anchor in the Thames, labeled "the Eel Ships." The main color of the map is beige, and the artwork is done is black line drawing. The spaces between the houses in the city are dark, and full of unknowns. The murky offspring of your sinister imagination are hiding in those shadows. Pickpockets? Muggers? Tiger-bat hybrids? Slick-talking confidence men selling fake eels? Probably. The Todal?* OH YES. It is far better to stick to the bright and open Thames, where you can be sure of real eels, from real Dutch eel salesmen. Meme text reads: "I'm just talkin' about Shaft (eels)" * Per Thurber: "The Todal looks like a blob of glup. It makes a sound like rabbits screaming, and smells of old, unopened rooms. It's made of lip. It feels as if it had been dead at least a dozen days, but it moves about like monkeys and like shadows." It is also sent by the devil to punish evildoers for doing less evil than they could. Honestly, it's not a thing you'd want to meet in even the most well-lit grocery store aisle, let alone in a dark London alleyway.
Medieval English laws categorized eels by size. The most common types were:
Pimper (small)
Shaft (medium)
Stub (big)
There were also "red eels" which were likely diseased. Customs officers threw them out. Which is weird, 'cause we'd think that the shaft eels were bad mother...
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