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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 29m

That is such a terrible map. It’s a perfectly fine first draft. But you can’t stop there, man

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 5h

When you have to fall a thousand feet...

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 5h

This afternoon’s drawing. A thoughtful bird, perhaps?

Art. A black and white ink pen drawing made of abstract shapes and lines that might look like the head and shoulders of a wise, if disheveled, bird.

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Birgit Constant, Historische Romane | Mittelalter ⏳📚 @birgitconstant.bsky.social · 19h

Come hike with me, let's hike… in the Middle Ages. New video with sneek peak into the maps behind the Northumbria Trilogy. youtu.be/f7-yAN99CaI #BookSky 📚⏳

youtu.be

Let's go hiking in Northumbria – a sneak peek into the maps of the Northumbria Trilogy #sneakpeek

YouTube video by Birgit Constant | Historische Romane | Mittelalter

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 11h

Yeah...I think I left some of mine there, too

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 11h

Can anyone learn to draw a fantasy map? Probably! Has this man bothered? Oh, lord no. Hire mapmakers to make your maps, folks. It'll save you from this kind of embarassment.

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 11h

Oh no. I don't even want to look. [I really want to look, because train wrecks]

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 12h

Here's one of the four maps from the book!

Map of Greece helpfully labeled "Map III: Greece." It shows the mainland of Greece along with some of the Aegean islands and 1/2 of Crete. The top of the map goes up into Thracia and Macedonia. The map shows region, cities, and some geographical features. Everything is labeled with Latin names, so that Catullus (should he ever pick up the book) can find his way around.

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 15h

Who doesn’t love Catullus? And if that isn’t enough to temp you…what about Catullus with some Surprised Eel maps? How can you resist?

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 13h

In c.1634 Matthew Stevenson wrote a poem titled "Upon Yorkshire Ale"...a drink he didn't like. He found it too dark & thick, and he wrote (among other unpleasant things): There cannot but be Eels Where there is so much Mudde. What do you think might be hiding in your drink? 🗃️🧪

Meme. Ad or label for Carling Breweries, showing three men at a table, having a drink together. They appear to be dressed in 19th century clothing. They do not come with names, but we will call them Theirry, Praktiss, and Phailyur.

The man on the left (Theirry) is leaning back into his chair with his feet out, and his right hand is on a cane. His left hand holds a long pipe, and he is looking at you. His face is flushed, like he has been exercising or lying, or been caught thinking about his sex dungeon. The man in middle, (Praktiss) is wearing a green jacket, and is older. His white hair is receding, and he is also smoking. His gaze is on the last man.

This last fellow (Phailyur) is wearing a red jacket & a blue bow tie, and is standing up while pointing at a piece of paper on the table. His black top hat is on the ground beside him, as if he stood up in such a hurry that he knocked it right over. I would guess that he is upset about how they're splitting the bill. Why should *he* have to pay for the onion rings? He barely had any!

The original label at the top reads: "Yorkshire Ale."

The meme text at the bottom reads:
"Now with more eels!"

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 13h

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 15h

Who doesn’t love Catullus? And if that isn’t enough to temp you…what about Catullus with some Surprised Eel maps? How can you resist?

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 16h

My autocorrect Is changing “coffee” to “vice.” Judgmental bastard.

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 16h

They were not on the list of tribes my client asked to have mapped, so they’re not present on the map.

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

Sometimes it is. This is a map I did a while ago for a history textbook.

Map of North America showing major indigenous tribes and cultural groups. The tribal names are on the map in their relative traditional spaces, and the map is colored in to represent the general regions of the cultural groups. The cultural groups represented (and their color on the map) are: Arctic (yellow); Subarctic (green); Northeast (pink); Southeast (light orange); Plateau (light green); Great Basin (dusty orange); Southwest (grey); Northwest Coast (dark orange); California (purple). There are too many individual tribes to name here, but they are most heavily clustered in the northeast, the southeast, and along the west coast.

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Roses are first, Violets come next. You miss half the fun If you skip the alt-text.

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

It's Wednesday, and I wanted to take a moment to highlight Rachel Carson, who wrote lovingly about eels in her first book, UNDER THE SEA WIND (1941). Part of the book follows Anguilla the eel on her long migration from a small New England pond all the way to the Sargasso Sea. 1/3 🗃️🧪

B&W photograph of Rachael Carson on a rocky beach, with waves breaking behind her. She is wearing dress clothes, with a wide-collared blouse under a suit jacket. Her hair is dark and slightly crazed. It might be windblown, or she might be going for a crazy scientist look. Her expression is intense, with her eyes piecing you in the ways that a shrike impales a vole. She is almost smiling, but it is the tight, hard smile of a woman who's seen some shit.

But that's only if you don't look closely. If you pay more attention, you'll see a real sadness there, too. There are no eels in the picture, so perhaps that's why.

All in all -- when you consider the sadness, the intensity, and the dress clothes -- she looks very much like she doesn't quite belong on a beach. But this, too, is wrong. If anyone belongs on a beach, it's Rachel Frickin' Carson.

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

Carson later developed that essay into her first book -- a lyrical effort to understand animals by thinking through their experiences. Carson's work is one of the earliest examples of explicitly literary science writing, & one of the first celebrations of the eel's life. /fin

Image of the book cover for Under the Sea-Wind. The cover background is blue, and looks like water. The title card is in yellow, and is surrounded by eels, sea birds, and various fish (including an eel). It is garnished with sea weed made to look a bit like a banner.. The birds are at the top of the page, and at the bottom is a lanternfish and some shells, so this is clearly meant to mimc the an ocean getting deeper. The birds are eating fish, but the fish aren't eating bids. This hardly seems fair. That lanternfish would love to get his jaws on a seagull.

The title text reads: "Under the Sea Wind." Below that, in blue, it reads "Rachel L. Carson", and below that, in a smaller font, it says, "Author of 'The Sea Around Us" At the bottom of the page is text reading: "A Staples Publication." The art is signed by Randell.

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

UNDER THE SEA WIND began as an 11-page intro to a Fisheries Dept. brochure. Her boss loved it, & said that, while it was too poetic for government use, she needed to find a home for it somewhere. In 1937, Carson published it in @theatlantic.com as an essay titled "Undersea." 2/3

B&W photograph of Carson sitting on a dock, writing on something on her lap. She is wearing a white short-sleeve shirt (or a long-sleeve shirt with the sleeves rolled up). She is either wearing pants or a skirt; it's impossible to tell. She is wearing a watch and a necklace, but she's not paying attention to either of them.

Unlike the previous picture, her hair is tightly controlled here. It's been pulled back, and shows a razor-straight part on the left side of her head. She is looking down at her lap, where she is either writing or drawing.

Behind her, on the water, are several ships. One is named "Bernice" and you can't make out the name of the other. Both ships are dark and beetling. The two ships feel a bit threatening, and it's easy to imagine the ships as two muggers sneaking up on a woman in the park. She's drawing a sketch (maybe of Yog-Sothoth enjoying the Teddy Bear's Picnic), and has no idea of the coming threat.

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

A vaguely claw-like drawing for your evening.

Art. A black and white ink pen drawing made of abstract shapes and lines that might look like a clawed hand reaching out from a sleeve. Or it might be a messed up hermit crab

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

“A brief discussion of Langland” is not something that Langland would approve of

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

It’s a “let’s look aspirational” day, yo

Black and white selfie of an eel historian staring up and off into the middle distance. His sliver hair is short, but not too short, and his mustache and beard are graying. His eyebrows are still dark as night in a cave, and the left one is slightly raised. There are lines at the corners of his eyes, and beneath them, as if he laughs a lot and doesn’t sleep much.* His expression is that of a man who is laughing at a private inner joke that so damned niche and stupid and he’s not going to bother to tell you about it.

* Yes, yes. As if.

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

It's Tuesday. You need some eels in your life, right? And some otters? Here you go! A scene of otters & eels, from an early 15th C. copy of Gaston Phoebus's Livre de la chasse. Eel blood is toxic to mammals, but otters don't care. They love them some eels. Can you blame them? 🗃️🧪

A medieval painting of otters playing in a pool, chasing and catching eels and other fish. There are 10 adult otters, and what look to be 2 younger otters in a den at the base of a tree. They are all doing serious otter things: playing, eating, cavorting, eating, gamboling, eating, swimming, and eating. They are having a good time. For now.

It can't last, though. This pond seems way too small to support all of these otters, and the painting has a border around it. They can't leave, and soon they will turn on each other in a bloodbath that will make the Donner Party look like a tea time at the Rotary Club. If you check back with these otters in two weeks, I suspect you'll find only carnage.

That, though, is a problem for Future Otters. Today's otters are carefree, with spotless souls.

Source:
Morgan (MS M.1044 fol. 28r)

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

It is toxic...this is why you should never eat raw eel (and why there's no such thing as eel sashimi). I don't know why it doesn't bother otters, but it doesn't seem to. They must have adjusted to it Anyway, here's a thread about eel blood and toxicity: bsky.app/profile/did:...

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

It was such a fun class. Usually I put the students in small, random groups and give them a discussion question. We’d walk for 10 min or so, and I’d moved between groups. We’d come back together and discuss as a whole class, then I’d give them another question and we’d walk some more.

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

My own resume has no gaps, it just uses negative space well

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

If you've followed me for a while, you'll know I used to teach a college course on the cultural history of walking. It was a great course, & every Monday we'd have class while walking. I loved teaching it, and I'm a sucker for books about walking, pilgrimage, etc. This book is *exactly* my thing.

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

My own resume has no gaps, it just uses negative space well

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

So. Your landlord wants his eels, but you didn't catch enough. Will he take money? Sometimes! In 1250 there was a property in Lenchwick that paid the cook of Evesham 40 sticks of eels (1000 fish) yearly. If there weren't enough eels the cook accepted 1.5 pence per stick instead. 🗃️🧪

Meme. Medieval art of a chef in the kitchen feeding a two people standing in line outside. The chef is dressed in blue & red, and is standing next to a large pot suspended over a fierce fire. He looks like his name is Safromage. With his right hand he's holding a fork and pulling a hunk of meat from the pot. In his left, he's passing what looks like a a plate of food to the first man in line. The people want what Safromage is cooking.

The two other men are either outdoors or in a different room. We'll call them Willyarn and Harrilox. A pillar separates them from the cook, & while his background is red, theirs is blue. They wear hooded cloaks & look hungry. Harrilox, in a brown cloak, has his hand up as if asking for food. "Me too?" he seems to say. Willyarn n is peering into his plate with some skepticism, because everyone's a critic. He's a living, breathing Yelp review.

Maybe the most interesting part of this image is the pot hanger. It's a 2-piece job, with teeth, to allow the cook to raise or lower it to control the cooking temp.

Meme text reads:
"Good pences make good neighbors
but mealtime is eel time"

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Ahh…perhaps it’s having trouble hearing me

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

But…but…I thought we were making good progress!

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

I have been patient I’ve used calm tones and employed Good pedagogy But without success. This god-damned pot of coffee Still won’t make itself.

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

I almost never draw objects. I wind up with lots of birds, lots of human-like things, and lots of dragon s or monsters. But my drawings almost never turn into objects. Almost.

Art. Black and white ink pen drawing made of abstract shapes and lines that looks very much like a tall high-heeled boot with a very pointy toe.

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