A countryman is a resident of the countryside[1] with a particular affinity for the traditions and pursuits of the countryside. The word has traditional connotations of naivety or simplicity but is also associated with wholesomeness, taciturnity, and intuitive cunning.
Countrymen edit
Jack Hatt was described as an "archetypal countryman".[2]
The American, Robert Anderson, was described as a corporate hero but a countryman at heart, "who loved ranching, fly-fishing, horses and family."[3]
The countryman doesn't waste words. The Welsh poet Dic Jones "looked every inch the weather-beaten countryman, hunched over the small tractor, a flat cap rammed down on his gaunt features, ploughing the reluctant Cardiganshire earth into a keen westerly wind. Dic Jones was the archetypal Welsh farmer, spare of frame and sparse with words."[4]
In Edmund Crispin's Beware of the Trains (1949), the character Beeton is described as an "archetypal countryman, slow but intuitive, blank of eye yet with a vein of simple cunning such as all those who shoot or trap animals tend in time to acquire".[5]
From 2000 to 2003, the BBC aired a television series staring Clarissa Dickson Wright and Sir John Scott, titled Clarissa and the Countryman that was accompanied by two books.[6]
Slang terms and idioms edit
Similar terms, mostly derogatory, include:
- "chaw-bacons" - Victorian England
- "clod-hopper"
- "country cousin"
- bumpkin
- yokel
- hick
- country bumpkin
- backwoodsman
In media edit
In media, The Countryman is a magazine established in 1927 that has a policy of not endorsing blood sports.[7] The Countryman's Journal was published from 1934 and there was also The Countryman's Weekly.
See also edit
References edit
- ^ https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/countryman
- ^ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/jack-hatt-37897.html
- ^ https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/dec/07/guardianobituaries.oil
- ^ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/6093679/Dic-Jones-face-like-an-undertakers-shovel-but-the-mind-of-Byron.html
- ^ https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2h1cQ_R0g2oC&lpg=PT142&ots=45SKb_IxPM&dq=countryman%20archetype%20-mini&pg=PT142#v=onepage&q=countryman%20archetype%20-mini&f=false
- ^ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/10704680/Clarissa-Dickson-Wright-champion-of-the-countryside.html
- ^ http://www.countrymanmagazine.co.uk/about-us/
Further reading edit
- Bates, H. E. (1943) O More Than Happy Countryman. London: Country Life.[1]
- Greenberg, David Benjamin. (1947) Countryman's Companion. Harper.
- Hartley, Dorothy. (1942) The Countryman's England. London: Batsford.
- Moore, John. (1939) The Countryman's England. The English Scene, Vol. 6. Seeley Service.
- Moore, John. (1935) Country Men. London: J. M. Dent.
- Niall, Ian. (1965) The Way of a Countryman. London: Country Life. (pseud. John McNeillie)
- Roberts, Elliot Langley. (1956) Happy Countryman. London: Herbert Jenkins.
- Payn, William Hale. (1994) Oh Happy Countryman: A Suffolk Memoir. Lewes: The Book Guild. ISBN 0863329330
- Scott, Johnny. (2019) The Countryman: Through the Seasons. Quiller. ISBN 9781846892974
- Seymour, John. (1988) England Revisited: A countryman's nostalgic journey. London: Dorling Kindersley.
- Thomas, William Beach (1944) The Way of a Countryman. London: Michael Joseph.
- Tyrrell, Sydney James. (1973) A Countryman's Tale. London: Constable. ISBN 0094589003
- Vachell, Horace Annesley. (1933) This was England. A Countryman's Calendar, being a Pilgrimage through the by-ways of Yesterday, through the England that used to be, with its Flowers and Fields &c. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
- Warren, C. Henry. (1939) The Happy Countryman. London: Geoffrey Bles.
Music edit
- The Countryman’s Joy