Under the old system, a dozen men worked all the winter through, hammering away with their flails in the barns.
"Hodge and His Masters"
Richard Jefferies
The dim short winter day soon ends, but the sound of the flails continues in the barns till long after dark before the weary labourers end their task and trudge home.
"Afoot in England"
W.H. Hudson
He declared that, though you had set a hundred men with heavy flails in operation at one time beating upon the side of the ship, it would not have been worse than the legs of the cattle beating upon each other and all within their reach.
"Cattle and Cattle-breeders"
William M'Combie