Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1999, Page 128

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THE BROTHER OF THE SNAKE AND FISH AS KINGS
trusted eel as food because of its resem-
blance to snakes. During World War I, a
pamphlet was published in Scotland where
the author regrets that the inhabitants, due
to prejudices, did not eat eel (MacKenzie,
1935: 80). In southern Sweden and in the
coastal areas of Denmark, where the eel has
always been consumed as food, there are no
stories or opinions about the ‘Brother of the
Snake’.
According to some informants and au-
thors, the aversion to eating eel goes back
to the Old Testament view as stated in
Leviathans 11: 10. From the coastal area of
Estonia we find the same story where the
eel is considered the ‘Brother of the Snake’.
For instance, the Estonian and Swedish-
speaking settlers of the island Wormso did
not eat it. There is a folk legend recorded
from that area that tries to explain why eels
should not be eaten. The legend tells how
kinship between the eel and the snake be-
gan. It is said that the snake had seduced
the First Parents in Paradise and thereby
raised the wrath of God. Jesus then took a
stick and cut the snake into two pieces. The
part with the head fell on the dry land,
while the tail part fell into the water. A new
snake grew from the former part, while the
eel emerged from the latter (Russwurm,
1855: 189).
If we look outside the Nordic countries,
it is evident in many parts of the world that
the eel has been regarded as a snake inter-
breeding with snakes, an opinion previous-
ly found in Medieval sources (Hoffman-
Krayer, 1927: 1). However, neither Bibli-
cal stories, nor Medieval sources, explain
why the inhabitants of northem Sweden,
Finland, Norway, Estonia, the Faroe Is-
lands, earlier also Zealand in Denmark, by
tradition have despised the eel as food. On
the other hand, these traditions gave a kind
of legitimacy to abstaining from eel as a
food by the inhabitants in those areas where
there was a prevalent distmst for the eel,
despite the fact that they were aware that
eel was consumed by others.
The consumption of eel is not the only
example of a popular belief that reflects so-
cial structures in human society. Such cat-
egorisations, of course, exist about other
fish species as well. In Sweden, the burbot
(Lota lota), a freshwater member of the
codfish family, is a species that has been
distrusted in certain areas because of its
strange looks and its skin that differs from
other fish with scales. According to
Swedish folk taxonomy stated in several
records in the folk life archives, the burbot
is a cousin to the snake and, therefore, it
should not be eaten. It is characterised as a
skin fish that must be skinned (ULMA 26
902, ULMA 27 095). Skin fish could not
be eaten, says a Swedish folk life record
from Uppland, which also stresses that ac-
cording to the Bible, fish without scales are
forbidden. Burbots should, therefore, not
be eaten (ULMA 34 520). However, the
burbot has always been widely utilised as
food in Sweden (Svanberg, 1999).
Fish Kings
Strange looking fish, either exceptionally
large specimens of a certain species, or
those that are malformed in one way or an-
other, or even uncommon species caught
together with fish shoals, have, by tradition,