Peta Credlin asked me to look at the word ‘brumby’ (because of the horrible brumby cull in the Snowy Mountains National Park).
A ‘brumby’ is a wild bush horse, descended from runaway stock.
The word first appeared in 1871.
The Australian National Dictionary says “of unknown origin”—but there are four theories.
A researcher at Flinders University, Dymphna Lonergan claimed that ‘brumby’ is a corruption of an Irish word for a young horse or colt.
Another proposal is that it’s from the name of a person (possibly a Lieutenant or Major Brumby) whose horses escaped and started the breed.
A third theory is that it’s a corruption of Baramba Station in Queensland: a cattle station whose stud horses supposedly ran wild when the station went broke.
While, the fourth (and most likely) explanation, is that it comes from an Aboriginal word booramby meaning “wild.”
Banjo Paterson, in 1896 referred to this origin for ‘brumby’ in the introduction to his bush ballad ‘Brumby’s run’ saying that a New South Wales Supreme Court judge, hearing of ‘Brumby horses’ asked: “Who is this Brumby? And where is his run?”
Paterson’s bush ballad was his answer to that question:
It lies beyond the Western Pines
Beneath the sinking sun,
And not a survey mark defines
The bounds of “Brumby’s Run.”
Google Banjo Paterson and “Brumby’s Run” and read the whole of the poem.
It’s not long, and it’s a great bush ballad. It makes you smell the gum leaves and see the distant plains—it’s one of those bush ballads that warm an Aussie’s heart.
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