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"Verily, lord," said his men to Matholwch, "forbid now the ships and the ferry boats and the coracles, that they go not into Cambria, and such as come over from Cambria hither, imprison them that they go not back for this thing to be known there." And he did so; and it was thus for not less than three years.
Ages ago, when the Cymric men, with their wives and little ones rowed over in their coracles, from Gallia, or the Summer Land, to Britain, the Honey Land, they came first to the promontory which we know as Cornwall; that is, the Cornu Galliae, or Walliae, which means Horn or Cape of the new country now called England. Here was a new region, rich in every kind of minerals.
Next day the son arrived, but was so changed in appearance, that Bladud would not have recognised his old playmate had not his father called him by name. The skiff, although primitive and rude in its construction, was comparatively large, and a considerable advance on the dug-outs, or wooden canoes, and the skin coracles of the period. It had a square or lug-sail, and was steered by a rudder.
'Yes, I rejoined; and to them I'm afraid we are even more impersonal. From their little Piccadilly coracles our watch-tower in the skies is merely a radiant facade of glowing windows, and no one of all who glide by realises that the spirited illumination is every bit due to your eyes. You have but to close them, and every one will be asking what has gone wrong with the electric light.
Had their Navy, as hath been asserted by some Writers, consisted only of small Fishing Boats, now, in the Principality called, Coracles, they could not have afforded such assistance to the Gauls, as to bring upon them the Roman power. As to unskilfulness, it doth not appear from History, that this, with truth, could be said of them.
He could turn the hand-mill, work on the farm, heal the sick, and command as a practised sailor the little fleet of coracles which lay hauled up on the strand of Iona, ready to carry him and his monks on their missionary voyages to the mainland or the isles.
We parted at the chief's house, Bill to secure provisions, and I to unmoor a boat, and bring her round to a lonely bay on the coast, where my companion was to join me. I accomplished my task without the slightest difficulty, selected a light craft, they did not use canoes, but rowed boats like coracles, and was lying at anchor, moored with a heavy stone, in the bay.
Two walls with a flight of steps in each enclose a grass terrace between them, and trees and bushes straggle to the edge of the river, hardly keeping clear of the swinging rope. Coracles are sometimes used for ferrying also punts.
Everything had to be abandoned, and the explorers escaped from their critical position by resorting to the construction of coracles of horse hide, by means of which they managed to save their lives. On his return, M'Kinlay examined the mouth of the Daly River in Anson Bay, and recommended it as a site in preference to Escape Cliffs, the suggestion was not, however, acted on.
This great benefactor taught his people to make coracles, and on these the whole tribe of thousands of Cymric folk crossed over into Britain, landing in Cornwall. The old name of this shire meant the Horn of Gallia, or Wallia, as the new land was later named. We think of Cornwall as the big toe of the Mother Land. These first comers called it a horn.
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