Perkele is the god associated with thunder in Finnish mythology, like Thor of Norse mythology. In modern Finnish perkele is a common swearword.
The name is of Indo-European origin. Related gods from other areas are Perkūnas (Lithuania), Pērkons (Latvia), Percunis (Prussia), Piarun (Belarus), Peko or Pekolasõ (Estonia) and Perun (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech republic, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine).
As "Perkele" is the original name for ...
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Perkele is the god associated with thunder in Finnish mythology, like Thor of Norse mythology. In modern Finnish perkele is a common swearword.
The name is of Indo-European origin. Related gods from other areas are Perkūnas (Lithuania), Pērkons (Latvia), Percunis (Prussia), Piarun (Belarus), Peko or Pekolasõ (Estonia) and Perun (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech republic, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine).
As "Perkele" is the original name for Ukko, it has a history of being used as a curse: a cry for the god for strength. It still is a common curse word in vernacular Finnish. To a Finn, the word entails seriousness and potency that more lightly used curses lack. Also, when the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland held a popular contest to nominate the "most energizing" word in the Finnish language, one of the suggestions was Perkele because "it is the curse word that gave the most strength for the reconstruction of Finland after the wars." However, the popular vote was...
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