diff --git a/pod/perlhack.pod b/pod/perlhack.pod
index 7a524619a903..5a685f2b5de9 100644
--- a/pod/perlhack.pod
+++ b/pod/perlhack.pod
@@ -952,6 +952,14 @@ file it is up to you to delete the file manually and then let the
 harness recreate it, although the file format does not change frequently
 so this should not be necessary very often.
 
+=head2 Running only specific tests
+
+Running only specific tests of the core distribution can be done with
+
+    HARNESS_RE=PATTERN make test_harness
+
+Which will result in only the test files matching PATTERN to be run.
+
 =head2 Running tests by hand
 
 You can run part of the test suite by hand by using one of the
diff --git a/t/harness b/t/harness
index 50e5e899b071..8394a14c587e 100644
--- a/t/harness
+++ b/t/harness
@@ -97,6 +97,10 @@ while ($ARGV[0] && $ARGV[0]=~/^-?-(n?)re/) {
     }
 }
 
+if ($ENV{HARNESS_RE}) {
+  push @re, $ENV{HARNESS_RE};
+}
+
 my $jobs = $ENV{TEST_JOBS};
 my ($rules, $state, $color);