In the Chinese cultural area, the name eel is often associated with the word 'dragon'. The Shuo Wen Jie Zi (Explanation of Characters) explains it as 'the long appearance of the fish'. According to Japanese legend, the eel is the messenger of the water god, and fishermen in the Edo period believed that they had to throw copper coins into the sea before catching eels in order to seek blessings. In Fujian Province, China, fishermen call eel 'sea dragon', that it can suppress the sea to ward off evil spirits, the Qing Dynasty 'Min production record is different' records, maternal consumption of eel can 'through the blood veins' - this belief may be This belief may be due to the strong vitality of the eel: even if decapitated, its body can still twist for hours.
In Indo-European languages, the name eel is often associated with the word 'snake'. The French word 'anguille' and the Spanish word 'anguila' follow in the same vein, reflecting a collective fear in medieval Europe: the eel's scaly, sleek form resembled a serpent in the guise of Satan, and the Church banned it from its followers for a time. Dante, in the Divine Comedy - Inferno, further reinforces the evil symbolism of the eel by describing the swamps in which the fraudsters were imprisoned as being filled with 'slippery, eel-like demons'. Interestingly, Norse mythology ascribes a very different divinity to the eel. The Icelandic epic poem Edda tells of Thor, the god of thunder, catching the world-encircling serpent, Ymengarde, and fishermen believed that the eel was a miniature incarnation of the serpent - making eel fishing an oracular feat.
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