Finns Wilderness and Boundary Landforms in Medieval Ireland

It is argued in this paper that the wilderness space in which Finn and his fían hunt and engage with the Otherworld is a synthesis of the real environment of particular bare-topped hills and mountains, termed formaoil. Certain landforms represented by this topographical term, which lends itself to a place-name given to some thirty-two locations in Ireland, and at least four in Scotland, are cited in the chronicles as battle grounds and places of conflict, mainly in Ulster and upper Connacht, in the seventh, tenth, and eleventh centuries, and in connection with raiding in the fifteenth century. Just as Finn is inextricably linked in fíanaigecht with Formaoil na Fiann, in chronicle entries and encomiastic poems of the late medieval and early modern period the identities of lords are tied to formaoil, as a form of heroic association with the domain of rulership. Finns Formaoil, however, is not just a bare landform, it is quintessentially extra-social space, a place of transition that reflects the historical geography of actual formaoil landforms situated in territorial boundary zones and in liminal areas between wild and cultivated land.