Dodgson, Campbell; Dürer, Albrecht [Editor]: Albrecht Dürer (London [u.a.]: The Midici Soc., 1926)

gossiping about the Eel” (Die Atzel, die von dem Aal schwatzt). The tale is told
in ‘ Der Ritter von Turn/ but is not one of those illustrated in the woodcuts by
Diirer in the Basel edition (1494). It is the story of a man who was keeping a fine
eel in his fish-tank, in case an unexpected guest should arrive. In his absence his
wife took a fancy to the eel, and conspired with a gossip to cook and eat it, telling
the husband that it had been taken by an otter. Now the woman had a magpie
that could talk, and when the husband returned the bird told tales. The wife was
ready with her excuse, but the husband believed the bird and scolded his wife. To
revenge herself, she and the gossip caught the bird and plucked every feather from
its head. Thereafter, whenever the magpie saw a man with a bald head, it would
say, “ So you have been telling about the eel! ” Later versions of the story by
Johann Pauli (in ' Schimpf and Ernst ’) and Hans Sachs, make the husband a
nobleman, but the older version says nothing about his rank in life. Diirer evidently
wished to indicate that he had just returned from his vain search for the eel. (Diirer
Society, Index volume, p. 66.)

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