The Man from Snowy River (poem)

"The Man from Snowy River" is a poem by Australian bush poet Banjo Paterson. It was first published in The Bulletin, an Australian news magazine, on 26 April 1890, and was published by Angus & Robertson in October 1895, with other poems by Paterson, in The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses.

The poem tells the story of a horseback pursuit to recapture the colt of a prizewinning racehorse that escaped from its paddock and is living with the brumbies (wild horses) of the mountain ranges. Eventually the brumbies descend a seemingly impassably steep slope, at which point the assembled riders give up the pursuit, except the young protagonist, who spurs his "pony" (horse) down the "terrible descent" and catches the mob.

Two characters mentioned in the early part of the poem are featured in previous Paterson poems; "Clancy of the Overflow" and Harrison from "Old Pardon, Son of Reprieve".

It is recorded in the selected works of "Banjo" Paterson that the location of the ride fictionalised in the poem was in the region of today's Burrinjuck Dam, north-west of Canberra in Australian Capital Territory. Paterson had helped round up brumbies as a child and later owned property in this region.

The Snowy River, from where "the Man" comes, has its headwaters in the Snowy Mountains, the highest section of the Great Dividing Range near the easternmost part of the border between New South Wales and Victoria. The ride does not take place in the Snowy River because, within the poem, Clancy describes to the other men the country from where "the man from Snowy River" comes.

Corryong, a small town on the western side of the range, claims Jack Riley (1841–1914) as the inspiration for the character, and like many other towns in the region uses the image of the character as part of the marketing to tourists. Riley was a hermit employed by John Pearce of Greg Station at Corryong to run cattle at "Tom Groggin" 60 km upriver from Khancoban, New South Wales. Paterson is said (by Corryong legend) to have met Riley on at least two occasions.

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