No wonder Iceland was given such a poetic name - "the land of ice and fire." Ten percent of the country's territory is covered with glaciers, and the volcano in Iceland is not just a fire-breathing mountain, but an element of national folklore. Volcanic eruptions here occur on average every five years.
True, most of them are quite peaceful. And recently, not only Europe, but the whole world has learned to pronounce the almost unpronounceable oronym "Eyyafyadlayeküll"
Icelanders are no strangers to regular eruptions. The first volcano in Iceland whose eruption is recorded in the annals is Torfaeküll. It erupted in 1477, but did not cause much inconvenience to the natives, since the historical tablets do not report anything about the destruction caused by it.
Many volcanoes have the status of "dormant", because they have not erupted for a very, very long time. For example, Herdubraid volcano erupted on the first andlast time about three hundred and thirty thousand years ago.
Geologists claim that the eruption was associated with the "birth" of the volcano. Since then, he has been silent, waiting in the wings, and when that time comes is unknown. Another dormant volcano is Curling. The volcano is located on the northern coast of the island and has a height of more than one and a half kilometers. Its last eruption was six to seven million years ago.
The most famous volcano in Iceland is Hekla. Of all the fire-breathing mountains of this island, it is the most active. For frequent eruptions, the Icelanders nicknamed it "the gate to hell." Hekla holds the Icelandic record for the longest eruption. Starting to throw out lava on March 27, 1947, Hekla finished "disgraceful" only in April 1948, that is, more than a year later! Scientists have found that several eruptions of Hekla in prehistoric times caused a decrease in the average temperature in the Northern Hemisphere by several degrees! This became possible due to the large amount of volcanic ash and dust that blocked the path of the sun's rays. The Icelanders have a legend that on the top of Hekla during the Easter holiday, witches gather for their coven. True, it is not clear why the witches gather there during the Christian holiday. Unclean forces, by definition, must hide in their underground shelters during the triumph of Light. Although who knows, perhaps Hekla is such a refuge for them.
The second most popular volcano in Iceland is Eyjafjallajökull. It is locatedin the southern part of the island and became famous in 2010 after a massive eruption sent huge amounts of ash into the atmosphere. Then, due to problems in air navigation, a large number of flights were postponed. To be precise, this small volcano did not have its own name until 2010, but was named after the glacier in which it is located.
Volcanic eruption in Iceland for local residents is the same as for the inhabitants of Kamchatka or the Kuriles is the activity of local hills: yes, unpleasant, yes, sometimes dangerous, but nothing can be done. Yes, and already used to it.
The name of a volcano in Iceland (Eyyafjallajökull, for example) is hard to pronounce for most of the inhabitants of the planet due to the archaic nature of the Icelandic language. If the mainland Scandinavian languages: Swedish, Norwegian and Danish, being influenced by their neighbors, strongly departed from their common ancestor, then Icelandic is almost identical to the ancient language of the Vikings. Icelanders can even safely read the original Edda - the works of the ancient epic, while the descendants of the Vikings from the mainland are deprived of this opportunity. This is equivalent if we could read in the original "The Tale of Bygone Years" by the monk Nestor or "The Tale of Igor's Campaign".
