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Residents of Lemberg as Other for Lembergs. And the older generations have ceased to transmit these humorous tales. Stories about Lemberg are now known only in the surrounding rural area and towns, but for how much longer? Butalci As I indicated at the beginning of the article, the stories concerning the citizens of Butale are now some of the most widely known humorous tales regarding stupidity. As there is no visual material related to stories about Lemberg, I chose to present visual material bound to literary stories about Butalci. The collection of humorous tales by Fran Milcinski entitled Butalci was published in 1949, seventeen years after the author passed away (Mil¢inski 1949). Before his death, the author published tales featuring the Butalci in various newspapers. Butale is a fictitious town, and Butalci, the inhabitants of this place. In Butalci thirty-five adventures of Butalci were published. The tales achieved such popularity that they entered narrative oral tradition. Nowadays, the humorous stories about Butalci are more widely known than stories about inhabitants of Lemberg or Ribnica. Even the Dictionary of Slovenian Literary Language includes the word butalec among its lexicographic units, describing it as denoting a very stupid person (Butalec 2000). We could translate the Slovenian word butalec as the English word “dimwit.” Currently, the word butalec is used as an offensive word that denotes that the insulted person is dense, stupid, or thick-headed. The word butalec is now a synonym for “fool” just like the residents of Lemberg, Ribnica, Marburg, or Verzej were in the past. The Butalci are similar to the Lembergs, as they are resented as inhabitants of a market town, with a judge, mayor, and policemen. Some researchers wanted to “identify [a] potential historic core of humorous stories and at least hypothetically indicate where Butale might lie” (Golec 1997: 14), but the existence of a real place and real people and their stories, from which Fran Mil£inski could draw his inspiration, is unlikely. More likely is that Mil£inski based his tales upon the humorous tales of Ribnica and Lemberg or other tales from the Slovenian narrative tradition or that he found inspiration in internationally known tales such as the Greek Abdera or the German Schilda and others. Mil¢inski was a lawyer by profession and served many years as a judge. He collected the material for his writing from his memories, his work in court, and from family and social life (Koblar 2012). His literary works often ridicule the Slovenian market towns and provincial environment. They ridicule erroneous upbringing and bureaucracy as well as the political and cultural circumstances of his time (Koblar 2012; Soëtarkié 1994). His work Butalci boasts a distinctive satire and its tales are said to be “a parody of the Slovenian nation, all of the positive and negative traits we possess, especially in a time when public criticism was unacceptable” (Verovnik 2012). 523
