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- The Horseman's Word, also known as the Society of Horsemen, is a fraternal secret society operating in Britain for those who work with horses. Established in north-eastern Scotland during the early nineteenth century, in ensuing decades it spread both to other parts of Scotland and into Eastern England. Although having largely declined by the mid-twentieth century, the society continues to exist in a diminished capacity within parts of Scotland. Influenced by the formation of the Miller's Word and other friendly societies that based their structure on Freemasonry, the Horseman's Word was founded to cater to the growing number of individuals who worked with draft horses in north-eastern Scotland. Its members included horse trainers, blacksmiths, and ploughmen, all of whom were of lower economic and class status in Scottish society. The Horseman's Word acted as a form of trade union, aiming to protect trade secrets, ensuring that its members were properly trained, and defending the rights of its members against the wealthier land-owners. The group also had a semi-religious dimension, teaching its members various rituals designed to provide them with the ability to control both horses and women. Membership of the society required an initiation ceremony, during which Horsemen read passages from the Bible backwards, and the secrets included Masonic-style oaths, gestures, passwords and handshakes. Like the similar societies of the Miller's Word and the Toadmen, they were believed to have practiced witchcraft. In East Anglia, horsemen with these powers were sometimes called Horse Witches. During the twentieth century, the Word attracted the attention of several folklorists and historians, among them J. M. McPherson, George Ewart Evans, and Hamish Henderson. Although a number of these scholars initially suggested that the society represented a survival of a pre-Christian religious order, later historical research established the group's nineteenth-century origins. (en)
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- McPherson (en)
- Davidson (en)
- Hutton (en)
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- "So help me Lord to keep my secrets and perform my duties as a horseman. If I break any of them – even the last of them – I wish no less than to be done to me than my heart be torn from my breast by two wild horses, and my body quartered in four and swung on chains, and the wild birds of the air left to pick my bones, and these then taken down and buried in the sands of the sea, where the tide ebbs and flows twice every twenty four hours – to show I am a deceiver of the faith. Amen." (en)
- "'The Horseman's Word' serves as the umbrella-title under which many horsemen organised themselves, for centuries, and through which they collated and handed down the art/science of horsemanship. Semi-secret horse societies were once widespread across Britain and particularly powerful in north east Scotland. They were bodies of men that acted as a primitive trade union, as a cooperative veterinary service, as a repository of traditional knowledge, and as folk clubs – long before that revivalist phrase came into being." (en)
- "Question: Who caught the first horse?
Answer: It was Adam.
Question: Where did he catch him?
Answer: At the east side of the garden of Eden, in the way of the Land of Nod." (en)
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- — The Horseman's Creed, as recorded as part of an initiation ceremony in Angus. (en)
- Quote from a Horseman’s Word ritual. (en)
- — Historian Timothy Neat, 2002 (en)
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- The Horseman's Word, also known as the Society of Horsemen, is a fraternal secret society operating in Britain for those who work with horses. Established in north-eastern Scotland during the early nineteenth century, in ensuing decades it spread both to other parts of Scotland and into Eastern England. Although having largely declined by the mid-twentieth century, the society continues to exist in a diminished capacity within parts of Scotland. (en)
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