The so called Forest Finns (SE: skogsfinnar; NO: skogfinner) were Finnish migrants who settled in the forests of Sweden and Norway during the late 16^th and 17^th century. The reason was lacking land and food in Finland (which was part of Sweden) but also Swedish interests in expanding the fields. The Finns were really good at forest clearing. What is still today called Finnskog(en) crosses the border of the two Scandinavian countries.

In a Swedish literary context, this forest area of mixture and mystery, inclusion and alienation, has been loaded with a great deal of imaginative power producing both wishes and fears and it has been represented both from within and from without.

I will explore the ambiguous sense of Otherness and Home, of foreigners and friends, represented and/or produced in the chapter “Finnprästen” in Selma Lagerlöf’s novel Liliecrona’s Home from 1911 respectively Dan Andersson’s poem/song ”Saturday night in log-cabin” (Kolvaktarens visor) from 1915.

I will use some concepts from Place/Space Studies as Foucault’s heterotopia, and I will also, loosely, let myself me be inspired by some classical psychological theories as Bowlbys attachment theory and Tomkins affect theory in analyzing the literary Finn Forest.