[flowerbreeze]

There was a book about the eels being born from Sargasso sea, all transparent at first, that I remember reading ages ago. It mentioned a lot of legends as well surrounding the eels, because the young ones were never seen - only fully grown eels.

I cannot remember precisely, but to explain their existence, there were even some recipes about "creating" eels. I think one was something similar to "put a couple of sticks under a bit of wet turf for a night". And that is how the witches were able to create the eels.

I wish I could remember the title of the book, but unfortunately it was more than 30 years ago when I read it.

[a_c]

"The Book of Eels" touched a lot of topics you mentioned, not sure about the witch bit though. It was published in 2020 so probably not the one you are looking for. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51938590-the-book-of-eel...

[truculent]

Was it Waterland by Graham Swift (fiction, but has some eel diversions IIRC)?

[rsynnott]

> because the young ones were never seen - only fully grown eels.

Only, as it turns out, per the article the ones you normally see are _not_ fully grown eels; the sexually mature stage is also rarely seen.

[agos]

my favorite online newspaper recently did a long form piece on eels and their decline in Italy ([1] - Italian only, sorry).

The comments mention a couple of books:

- Brian M. Fagan, Fish on Friday

- Patrik Svensson, The Gospel of the Eels (also wrote another book on eels)

maybe it's one of these two!

[1]: https://www.ilpost.it/2025/05/29/anguille-comacchio/

[flowerbreeze]

Thank you! Since you mentioned the decline of eels book that was in Italian, I finally remembered the title too since it wasn't in English neither. It was this book in Estonian: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17609869-angerja-teekond.

The title translated to English would be something like "The Journey of Eel" by Aadu Hint. Published in 1950, so I'm rather certain it makes more sense to read the newer books these days.