A coracle (sometimes written also as “corracle”) is a small basket boat or a skin boat. A basket boat in the sense, that the frame of the boat is traditionally made by bending and weaving wood saplings together like a basket. Skin boat in the sense, that the basket is made waterproof by stretching animal skin over the basket.
Basket boats may be the oldest boat type. Or possibly second-oldest, after dugout canoes. A well-known written description of an ancient basket boat can be found in the Bible, Exodus 2, where little Moses is left floating in the river Nile by her mother.
