Mount Etna - The Entrance To The Underworld

Mount Etna - Connection to Greek Mythology & the Entrance to the Underworld

2026 started off with a bang in Sicily – literally! Mount Etna, the largest active volcano in Europe, erupted over the New Year’s holiday sending smoke and lava cascading down her ice-covered slopes. Ancient civilizations and in particular the Greeks have been fascinated with Mount Etna, and it is no wonder. Soaring to over 11,000 feet tall, Mount Etna is the tallest active volcano in Europe, and she has been exploding with violent burst and spewing ash for hundreds of thousands of years with the first historical recording of Mount Etna’s activities dating to 1500 BC.

Ancient civilization explained natural phenomena, like Mount Etna, by attributing religious significance to them through association with deities or seeing them as part of the larger cosmic universe. Many stories of Mount Etna are grounded in Greek & Roman mythology.

Hephaestus (Vulcan in Roman mythology), the son of Zeus and Hera was the god of fire and blacksmiths. As a baby, Hephaestus was thrown off Mount Olympus by either his mother because he was ugly and lame or by his father over a heated argument which left him ugly and lame. Upon being hurled to Earth, Hephaestus fell onto the lovely island of Sicily, where his fall created a massive hole in a lofty mountain. Mount Etna was formed and it was here that Hephaestus decided to reside and start his blacksmith forge. Every time the Greeks saw fire or smoke emerging from Etna, they knew Hephaestus was hard at work.

Assisting Hephaestus at his work were the one-eyed creatures called the Cyclopes. The most famous one, Polyphemus, lived in a cave on the slopes of Mount Etna where he raised his sheep. He had a famous encounter with the hero Odysseus who on his way home from the Trojan War was shipwrecked and then imprisoned in Polyphemus’ cave. Crafty as he was, Odysseus was able to ply Polyphemus full of wine one night which gave him the opportunity to blind Polyphemus’ one eye and enabled he and his men to escape.

Legend said that the famous cattle of the sun god, Helios grazed on the slopes of Mount Etna. Once again, our hero Odysseus was mentioned, but this time he and his men slaughter the famous bovine and were fated to doom as the gods sought their wrath for this digression.

In addition to its fiery eruptions, smoke, and lava, Mount Etna was historically believed to be the entrance to the underworld where the god Pluto resided with his lovely bride Persephone, his niece, whom he abducted one day as she picnicked on Etna with her mother, the Demeter, the goddess of agriculture. The unhappy Demeter made a deal with Pluto that he could only keep Persephone in the underworld for half of the year, and this was how the Greeks explained the seasons.

The notion that Mount Etna was the entrance to the underworld/hell belief did not disappear once Christianity triumphed over the older pagan religions. During the Middle Ages, the volcano’s fiery nature was seen as a literal gateway to hell. Even today, certain lava caves and craters have diabolic names such as “Porte dell’inferno” and those still practicing paganism gather at Etna during Halloween to see if they can conjure the dead.

Mount Etna is not strictly associated with fire, darkness and brimstone, the volcanic slopes around Mount Etna are extremely fertile and they attracted the attention of the god of wine Dionysos (Bacchus) who cultivated his vineyards here. And the viticulture on this very spot is still one of the oldest in Italy.

So, as we watch the latest images of the eruptions from Mount Etna, we can ponder Vulcan hard at work or Pluto and Persephone presiding over all the shades in the underworld. And hopefully and as we do this, we  raise a glass of the finest wine harvested on Dionysus' estate in honor of the majestic Mount Etna!