The Power of Eel

As a child I was very fond of Arthur Ransome's books about polite 30s children exploring and sailing, even though I barely knew one end of a boat from the other.

I've been re-reading them lately. There's a later entry, Secret Water, which takes place on the salt-marshes in Essex, and has a climactic scene where they chant and dance around a 'human sacrifice' to the Great Eel.

I wonder if Robert Holmes read it as a kid, and it unconsciously influenced another story set in a marsh and involving a giant water creature. Incidentally the swamp scenes in Power of Kroll were filmed only 25 miles away from Hamford Water where the book is set.