page_title: Fingal's Cave
section_title: In art and literature
hierarchical_section_title: Fingal's Cave / In art and literature
context_page_description: Fingal's Cave is a sea cave on the uninhabited island of Staffa, in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, known for its natural acoustics. The National Trust for Scotland owns the cave as part of a national nature reserve. It became known as Fingal's Cave after the eponymous hero of an epic poem by 18th-century Scots poet-historian James Macpherson.
context_section_description: Romantic composer Felix Mendelssohn visited in 1829 and wrote an overture, The Hebrides, Op. 26, (also known as Fingal's Cave overture), inspired by the weird echoes in the cave. Mendelssohn's overture popularized the cave as a tourist destination. Other famous 19th-century visitors included author Jules Verne, who used it in his book Le Rayon Vert (The Green Ray), and mentions it in the novels Journey to the Center of the Earth and The Mysterious Island; poets William Wordsworth, John Keats, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson; and Romantic artist J. M. W. Turner, who painted Staffa, Fingal's Cave in 1832. Queen Victoria also made the trip.
  The 19th century Austro-Hungarian guitarist and composer Johann Kaspar Mertz included a piece entitled Fingals-Höhle in his set of character pieces for guitar Bardenklänge.
  The playwright August Strindberg also set scenes from his play A Dream Play in a place called "Fingal's Grotta". Scots novelist Sir Walter Scott described Fingal's Cave as "one of the most extraordinary places I ever beheld. It exceeded, in my mind, every description I had heard of it… composed entirely of basaltic pillars as high as the roof of a cathedral, and running deep into the rock, eternally swept by a deep and swelling sea, and paved, as it were, with ruddy marble, [it] baffles all description."
  Artist Matthew Barney used the cave along with the Giant's Causeway for the opening and closing scenes of his art film, Cremaster 3. In 2008, the video artist Richard Ashrowan spent several days recording the interior of Fingal's Cave for an exhibition at the Foksal Gallery in Poland.
  One of Pink Floyd's early songs bears this location's name. This instrumental was written for the film Zabriskie Point but not used.
  Lloyd House at Caltech has a mural representing Fingal's Cave. The hallway that features this mural also houses a wooden statue named Fingal, which is among the oldest heirlooms at the institute.
  Scottish Celtic rock band Wolfstone recorded an instrumental titled Fingal's Cave on their 1999 album Seven.
  The Alistair MacLean novel-based movie, When Eight Bells Toll starring Anthony Hopkins was filmed there.
  It is possible that the township of Fingal, Tasmania was named after the cave in MacPherson's honour.
caption: Entrance to Fingal's cave, 2004
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