Hekla - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

Hekla has continued to feature in artistic works since the time of its medieval infamy, the poet William Blake showed Winter being banished to Hekla in To Winter, one of the works from his Poetical Sketches. and the piece Hekla, Op 52 (1964) by Icelandic composer Jón Leifs has been called the "loudest classical music of all time". The requirements for a performance of Hekla include four sets of rocks hit with hammers, steel plates, anvils, sirens, cannons, metal chains, choir, a large orchestra, and organ.

In the Boston, United States area, Hekla pastries can be found - large, upside-down cinnamon rolls with white sugar icing spooned over the top to look like the snow-topped volcano.

In the real-time tactics game Tom Clancy's EndWar, one of the European tank-units is named Hekla.

Mt. Hekla was referenced in the third chapter of Herman Melville's Moby Dick, in EE Ryan's The Odd Saga of the American and a Curious Icelandic Flock, and in the final chapters of Joan Aiken's Is.