gave men who otherwise were of lowly economic and class status a sense of personal and social authority based on their knowledge, skills, and occupational importance. Neat noted that it was also "a quasi-religious and mystical cult". The historian Ronald Hutton also described it as "a male anti-society, bent on deliberate misbehaviour in a private and controlled setting". Spread and decline During the course of the nineteenth century, the Horseman's Word spread from its heartlands and into both other areas of Scotland and then into eastern England. This spread was at least in part due to Scots migrating south and leasing or being employed in English farms. In England, the structure of the group and its rituals remained much the same, although its name was Anglicised to the Society of Horsemen. In England, the Word merged and absorbed many elements of traditional horse lore, for draught horses had replaced oxen in the country during the early modern period. The ability to control farm animals had been attributed to both witches and cunning folk in English folk tradition, and by the nineteenth-century there were various men operating in Britain who had gained renown for their alleged ability to control horses, such as the American James Samuel Rare and the English born Sydney Frederick Galvayne. These individuals were commonly known as "horse whisperers", a term that had been brought to England from Ireland in the early nineteenth century. The Word never gained the popularity in England that it had in Scotland. It has been estimated, for instance, that in Suffolk no more than one percent of farms contained men who were initiates of the group. As literacy rates grew during the nineteenth century, information about horsemanship gained from published books filtered into the Word to supplement its oral traditions. The links that many horsemen had to British cavalry regiments also resulted in knowledge from the latter being adopted by the Word. Within Scotland, the Horseman's Word retained its cultural and social importance within rural communities until the mid-twentieth century. It gradually became the equivalent of a working men's club which was focused on the well-being of its members. As of the late 1990s it still existed in northern Scotland as a secret society of horse lovers. The present Baron Kilmarnock claims membership of the group, stating that he was initiated in Sandwick, Orkney in 1983. Praxes Initiation ceremony According to Neat, the