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Residents of Lemberg as Other
it there would be folly. The smartest of the bunch got an idea. The best thing to do
would be to have it grazed. At least this way cattle would benefit from it. But who
should be the one to do it? They decided on the communal bull. There was not one
man among them who would deny the bull this tasty graze. They wasted no time
in taking up the necessary arrangements. The first thing they did was push a robust
beam through the roof of the church and fix a pulley at the end of the beam. They
pulled a rope through the pulley and formed a sling at the end. They slipped the
sling around the bull’s neck. Strong hands grabbed the other end of the rope and
started pulling. The bull was heavy, as it should be, since it was a good breed and
had been reared well. Slowly, slowly did the Lembergs pull the heavy animal up¬
wards, shouting loudly all the while. The bull was in much pain and soon started
bellowing, as it was running out of breath. “Look, look, he’s looking forward to
the fatty pasture!” they screamed. Once they had pulled the bull all the way up to
the pulley, the rope around its neck was so tight, that its tongue was hanging out.
When the Lembergs saw this, there was no end to their joy. “He can smell it now,
see! Look, he’s sticking his tongue out to reach it!” The bull was at the pulley. All it
had to do was bite. But it didn’t move. The Lembergs started persuading it nicely.
No use. The bull stubbornly stretched its legs and finally settled down. At that
point one of the Lembergs climbed up to take a close look at the bull. He poked it
again and again, until it seemed to him that the bull must be dead. The Lembergs
slowly lowered the bull back to the ground. They had to acknowledge that they had
strangled it. The Lembergs let the grass grow freely from then on” (Kuret 1954: 8).
Stories such as this one are well known in and around the area. The first noted
mention of Lemberg as a town of fools and idiots dates back to 1858, when the news¬
paper entitled Kmetijske in rokodelske novice (News for farmers and crafismen’) ran
a small article called “Humorous Slovenian Sketches.” It featured a short narration of
a wedding taking place in Vrbovec (Verbovec). The article ends with: “May God be
with you, my dear people of Verbovec, brothers of people from Ribnica and Lemberg!
Hey, brothers from Ribnica and Lemberg, would you like to share a story about your
fellow countrymen?” (Vicko 1858: 142). The same newspaper ran an article in 1859
with a note proving, in this case indirectly, that humorous tales concerning people
from Ribnica (ill. 232) and Lemberg were already in circulation. In the article is said:
“Whoever doesn’t have a doctorate, is not a member of the Academy of Vienna or
Berlin, who doesn’t spend his time crouching in a residence or teaching at a university
is worth as much as a person from Lemberg or Ribnica” (Vicko 1859: 93).
An article on popular house names in the area of Slovenske Konjice from 1886
mentions the surname Lamberzan with a comment saying that such a surname
could be derisive, mocking, or ironical (Napotnik 1886: 290). Based on represented
comments, which were published in various newspapers in the second half of the
nineteenth century, one can conclude that a person from Lemberg or Ribnica, in
this epoch, denoted someone without higher education or social status and someone
to be ridiculed.
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