page_title: Hekla
section_title: Reputation
hierarchical_section_title: Hekla / Reputation
caption_attribution_description: We see three volcanoes in Iceland: Hekla, Kreusberg (?) and Helgafjell. Below three hot sources.
context_page_description: Hekla, or Hecla, is a stratovolcano in the south of Iceland with a height of 1,491 m. Hekla is one of Iceland's most active volcanoes; over 20 eruptions have occurred in and around the volcano since 874. During the Middle Ages, Europeans called the volcano the "Gateway to Hell".
  Hekla is part of a volcanic ridge, 40 km long. The most active part of this ridge, a fissure about 5.5 km long named Heklugjá, is considered to be within Hekla proper. Hekla looks rather like an overturned boat, with its keel being a series of craters, two of which are generally the most active.
  The volcano's frequent large eruptions have covered much of Iceland with tephra, and these layers can be used to date eruptions of Iceland's other volcanoes. Approximately 10% of the tephra created in Iceland in the last thousand years has come from Hekla, amounting to 5 km³. Cumulatively, the volcano has produced one of the largest volumes of lava of any in the world in the last millennium, around 8 km³.
context_section_description: After the eruption of 1104, stories, probably spread deliberately through Europe by Cistercian monks, told that Hekla was the gateway to Hell. The Cistercian monk Herbert of Clairvaux wrote in his De Miraculis (without naming Hekla): 
  The renowned fiery cauldron of Sicily, which men call Hell's chimney ... that cauldron is affirmed to be like a small furnace compared to this enormous inferno.
  — Herbert of Clairvaux, Liber De Miraculis, 1180
   A poem by the monk Benedeit from circa 1120 about the voyages of Saint Brendan mentions Hekla as the prison of Judas.
  In the Flatey Book Annal it was recorded that during the 1341 eruption, people saw large and small birds flying in the mountain's fire which were taken to be souls.
  In the 16th century Caspar Peucer wrote that the Gates of Hell could be found in "the bottomless abyss of Hekla Fell". The belief that Hekla was the gate to Hell persisted until the 19th century. There is still a legend that witches gather on Hekla during Easter.
caption: Illustration from Olaus Magnus's Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus, book 2, 1555
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "Olaus Magnus Historia om de nordiska folken. Bok 2 - Kapitel 2 - Om mystiska egenskaper hos n\u00e5gra berg. - Utgivnings\u00e5r 1555.", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "150", "Image YResolution": "150", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS Windows", "Image DateTime": "2007:09:30 17:26:04", "Image Artist": "Picture processing Lars Henriksson,www.avrosys.nu", "Image Copyright": "Picture processing by Lars Henriksson, Ljungskile. Do not include this image in any other clipart collection.", "Image ExifOffset": "484", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "622", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8446", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1300", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "600"}