Eel
The eel is credited with the possession of many marvellous virtues. If he is left to die out of the water, his body steeped in strong vinegar and the blood of a vulture, and the whole placed under a dunghill, the composition will raise from the dead anything brought to it, and will give it life as before. It is also said that he who eats the still warm heart of an eel will be seized with the spirit of prophecy, and will predict things to come. The Egyptians worshipped the eel, which their priests alone had the right to eat. Magic eels were made in the eighteenth century of flour and the juice of mutton. There may be added a little anecdote told by William of Malmesbury. A dean of the church of Elgin, in the county of Moray in Scotland, having refused to cede his church to some pious monks, was changed, with all his canons, into eels, which the brother cook made into stew. 66 a