The Caracul of Fingal is no other than Caracalla, who (as the son of Severus) the emperor of Rome ... was not without reason called “The Son of the King of the World.”  This was A.D. 210.—­Dissertation on the Era of Ossian.

CARACULIAM’BO, the hypothetical giant of the island of Malindra’ma, whom don Quixote imagines he may one day conquer and make to kneel at the foot of his imaginary lady-love.—­Cervantes, Don Quixote, I.i.1 (1605).

CAR’ADOC OR CRADOCK, a knight of the Round Table.  He was husband of the only lady in the queen’s train who could wear “the mantle of matrimonial fidelity.”  This mantle fitted only chaste and virtuous wives; thus, when queen Guenever tried it on—­

  One while it was too long, another while too short,
  And wrinkled on her shoulders in most unseemly sort.

Percy, Reliques ("Boy and the Mantle,” III. iii. 18).

Sir Caradoc and the Boar’s Head.  The boy who brought the test mantle of fidelity to king Arthur’s court drew a wand three times across a boar’s head, and said, “There’s never a cuckold who can carve that head of brawn.”  Knight after knight made the attempt, but only sir Cradock could carve the brawn.

Sir Cradock and the Drinking-horn. The boy furthermore brought forth a drinking-horn, and said, “No cuckold can drink from that horn without spilling the liquor.”  Only Cradock succeeded, and “he wan the golden can.”—­Percy, Reliques ("Boy and the Mantle,” III. iii. 18).

CARADOC OF MEN’WYGENT, the younger bard of Gwenwyn prince of Powys-land.  The elder bard of the prince was Cadwallon.—­Sir W. Scott, The Betrothed (time, Henry II.).

CARATACH OR CARACTACUS, a British king brought captive before the emperor Claudius in A.D. 52.  He had been betrayed by Cartimandua.  Claudius set him at liberty.

  And Beaumont’s pilfered Caratach affords
  A tragedy complete except in words. 
  Byron, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809).

(Byron alludes to the “spectacle” of Caractacus produced by Thomas Sheridan at Drury Lane Theatre.  It was Beaumont’s tragedy of Bonduca, minus the dialogue.)

Digges [1720-1786] was the very absolute “Caratach.”  The solid bulk of his frame, his action, his voice, all marked him with identity.  Boaden, Life of Siddons.

CARATHIS, mother of the caliph Vathek.  She was a Greek, and induced her son to study necromancy, held in abhorrence by all good Mussulmans.  When her son threatened to put to death every one who attempted without success to read the inscription of certain sabres, Carathis wisely said, “Content yourself, my son, with commanding their beards to be burnt.  Beards are less essential to a state than men.”  She was ultimately carried by an afrit to the abyss of Eblis, in punishment of her many crimes.—­W.  Beckford, Vathek (1784).