The earliest reference to a coracle in Scotland was written in 1527, A Latin history of Scotland by Hector Boece and translated in 1536. He writes of a boat made from wands and bull hide called a corrok (currach) from which they fished for salmon and carried on their backs. Other written records are from the Eighteenth century. At the time of the 1745 rebellion on the Isle of Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides and the ancestral seat of ClanRanald of the Isles of who it was called for a cow to be killed and a coracle made. The coracle described (wickerwork and hide) was also used on the River Spey until the end of the Eighteenth century where there were fourteen used for towing rafts of timber. It was described that when passengers were carried they stood behind the paddler leaning on his shoulders. The last Spey coracle is at Elgin museum.
