The Rain Horse

by

Ted Hughes

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on The Rain Horse makes teaching easy.

On a dreary and rainy day, an unnamed young man walks through the hills and farmland of the country where he grew up, but which he left 12 years ago. He has trudged miles from the village, trying to emotionally connect with his youthful stomping grounds and muddying his new shoes and nice suit in the process. But even when looking at a view that he fondly recalls, he finds himself unmoved, a bored and distant stranger in this bleak landscape.

While the man considers the best way to return to the village, something catches the corner of his eye, and he turns to see a strange, “nightmarish” black horse silhouetted against the sky. Though the animal unsettles the man, and he wants to leave the area immediately, he doesn’t want to take the easy route back to the nearby village because it will take him past a familiar farm. He doesn’t want the farmer there to recognize him—or to not recognize him. So, he decides to take a longer route through the muddy fields, even though he’s worried about dirtying his clothes even more. But with the rain intensifying, he runs for shelter among some nearby oak trees.

The trees provide scant but soothing shelter in which the man desires to stay forever. But his pleasant, trance-like state in the woods is ruined when he becomes aware that the horse is watching him. This again unsettles him, but he decides that he will ignore the animal—until it charges into the woods at him. He rolls out of the way, narrowly escaping its “long yellow teeth.” As the horse disappears into the undergrowth, the man decides to leave the woods in the opposite direction.

However, at the edge of the woods, just as the man has managed to convince himself that the horse must have approached him out of “curiosity or playfulness” rather than malice, he sees it standing in his way. He slithers out of its sightline and tries yet again to talk himself out of his irrational, fearful reaction—while also deciding to take yet another route that he hopes will avoid the horse and leave it standing in the rain and waiting for him. But when he emerges from the cover of the vegetation, the horse charges yet again. He runs away, frightened but now also infuriated.

The man is no longer worried about dirtying his suit, and he ignores the increasingly heavy rain. Faced with the realization that the horse’s actions cannot be explained away, he picks up two stones from the ground. When the horse once more discovers his retreat and charges at him, he turns and hurls the stones, causing the horse to run off. Feeling enraged, empowered, and murderous, the man arms himself with more stones. The next time he sees the horse, he takes the offensive position, yelling, “brandishing his arms,” and hurling stones in its direction to the brink of exhaustion. When he pauses to stretch his shoulder, the horse makes a final charge. With his aim under “some superior guidance,” he cracks the horse with two final stones, finally deterring the animal.

Suddenly aware that he is freezing, exhausted, and miserable, the man retreats to a nearby farm where he spent time as a child. As he enters the farmyard, he notices its familiar smell and the swallows’ nests under the rafters of the shed. Taking shelter under the shed, he begins to strip off his ruined clothing and wring out the water. But then he suddenly stops, staring at the ground and feeling like an important part of his brain has been removed.