coracles

Updated: May 24, 2025

In getting out of their canoes, as well as into them, great care is required to preserve the balance of these frail and unsteady coracles, and in this they generally assist each other.

Sir William Edward Parry - Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and Narrative of an Attempt to Reach the North Pole, Volume 1

For this Thames is such an avenue and entry into marvellous life that earth can show no greater rival, none more rich in dignity or in the multitude of its merchandise. And if the flood of that merchandise shall cease, and the stream once more go lonely to the sea or carry coracles, it cannot be again as if it had never borne great ships, or swung the Admiral's galley on its tide.

O. M. (Ormonde Maddock) Dalton - Apologia Diffidentis

Nor is this all: their horses' hides were made into tents and clothing, perhaps into bottles and coracles; and their intestines into bowstrings. Trained then as they are, to habits which in themselves invite to war, the inclemency of their native climate has been a constant motive for them to seek out settlements and places of sojournment elsewhere.

John Henry Newman - Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3): The Turks in Their Relation to Europe; Marcus Tullius Cicero; Apollonius of Tyana; Primitive Christianity

"Basket-making has been a great industry in England from the earliest times; the ancient Britons were particularly skillful in weaving the supple wands of the willow. They even made of these slender stems little boats called 'coracles, in which they could paddle down the small rivers, and the boats could be carried on their shoulders when they were walking on dry land."

Ella Rodman Church - Among the Trees at Elmridge

There must be here many men from the eastern coast, where they have much larger and stronger craft than these coracles. I should put a strong party to work upon them. Then, in case of an attack, you could, when you see that longer resistance would be vain, take to the boats and join me; or, when the Romans approach, send them off to fetch my party from the island.

G. A. (George Alfred) Henty - Beric the Briton : a Story of the Roman Invasion

Their smaller boats, or coracles, were made of osiers interwoven, covered with hides, and rigged with leathern sails and thong tackle. It will readily be imagined that anything like civilization, as at present understood, must have been next to impossible under such circumstances.

Samuel Smiles - Industrial Biography, Iron Workers and Tool Makers

The morning which found us in face of it was in brisk contrast to the bland afternoon on which we had parted from Madeira. No flocking coracles surrounded our steamer, with crews eager to plunge into the hissing brine for shillings or equivalent quarters.

William Dean Howells - Roman Holidays, and Others