History and folklore: the many afterlives of Finella, Lady of the Mearns

Dr Linsey Hunter

Lecturer in Medieval history at the University of the Highlands and Islands

Finella, Lady of the Mearns, is recorded in the king-lists as a daughter of the mormaer of Angus during the tenth century. We know very little about her, but her legacy endures to the present day as a vengeful mother who assassinated the king of Scots before leaping to her death over the waterfall on the Mearns' coast which still bears her name: Den Finella. Dr Hunter traces the development of the legend of Finella from the late medieval Chronicler, John of Fordun, to the present day. She considers a range of texts produced by historians, antiquarians, playwrights and novelists, primarily in the 20th and early 21st centuries, in order to understand where, when, why and how people connected with Finella, and to understand the value of this medieval legend in post-medieval contexts. Undertaking this task is of vital importance in exploring the two-way relationship between history and folklore, via an unused body of source material, and the value of a local and coastal medieval past in a modern world.

This talk took place on 22 April 2021. You can watch a recording below: