Case file · Folklore / legend
Hekla, the mouth of Hell
After the great eruption of 1104, medieval Europe came to see Iceland's Hekla volcano as an entrance to Hell; the Cistercian Herbert of Clairvaux wrote of it around 1180.
1180 CE · 63.99, -19.67 · status: legend
The account
Later writers described the souls of the damned crying in its fires and black birds circling the crater.
The sceptical view
An active volcano whose eruptions explain the imagery.