Horseman’s Word, The
Timothy Neat

7 1/2" x 10 1/4" • 288 pages • b&w photos
ISBN 1841580945 • paperback • $25.00 •

The Horseman’s Word is the last volume of Timothy Neat’s quintet of books on Highland life in the 20th century; appropriately, it moves beyond the Highlands to embrace the whole of Scotland. it presents, in words and pictures, a fascinating group of twelve Scottish horsemen, blacksmiths and rural workers from Ross-shire, Inverness-shire, Argyll, Perthshire, Fife and the Scottish Borders. These are men whose lives have helped shape a nation.

Control of fire, metals, and horses have been of fundamental importance to the historical development of Western civilization and horsemen, and metalworkers have played a huge part in the making of modern Scotland. Their skills have, recurrently, transformed agricultural practices, industrial development and military history: their discipline, hard work, energy, and values have had great influence on the character of Scots rural society and culture. It is no accident that in mythological tradition the smith, the medicine man, and the artist were, usually, one and the same man. Horsemen have long been credited with secret knowledge, special powers, and confidence—and such things remain important right up to the present day. Strong connections still exist between making and healing and St. Luke remains patron saint of both artists and doctors. The warm dark of the smithy nurtures tradition and new inventions and the stable remains a universal symbol of shelter and fecundity—both reinforce habits of courage, song, story, and legend, which finds full expression in this fascinating book.

Timothy Neat is an art historian, filmmaker, and countryman. His film Hallaig (about the Gaelic poet Sorley Maclean) won the Pascoe Macfarlane Award in 1985, and his feature film, Play Me Something, won the Europa Prize at Barcelona in 1989. The Summer Walkers, the first part of his Highland Quintet, won the Jena Michaelis Ratcliffe Folklore Award in 1996.

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