I did not say that

When browsing repertories of popular narrative clichés on political power, one can discover that a certain kind of joke has been recently revived in Eastern Europe, which was fashionable in the Middle Ages, but whose ingenious mechanism must be just as old as speech itself.

This is a Romanian version:

Bucharest, October 1944. A man, very upset, goes to the police station to file a complaint:
– Two Swiss soldiers have entered my house, they have stolen everything they found, and have raped my wife and my daughter.
– Man, what kind of Swiss soldiers? There is not a single Swiss soldier in all Romania.
– I say, Swiss soldiers. I know what I am talking about.
– Come on, think again… They were surely Russians.
– You said it, sir, not me!

(Banc, C. and Alan Dundes, First Prize: Fifteen Years! An Annonatetd Collection of Romanian Political Jokes, London – Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1986)

And a Czech version:

Pepik comes running down the street to a policeman and tells him very upset:
– A Swiss soldier has stolen my Russian watch!
The policeman politely corrects him:
– It was surely a Russian soldier who has stolen your Swiss watch.
– Well, officer, you said it, not me!

(Köhler-Zülch, «Der politische Wilz und seine erzählforscherischen Implikationen», in Medien popularer Kultur, Frankfurt – New York: Campus Verlag, 1995)

Both jokes repeat a narrative scheme of oral tradition (“you said it, not me”), to which Theodor Zachariae already in 1915 dedicated a separate study: “Ihr sagt es, nicht ich!”, Zeitschrift für Volkskunde 25, 402-408. It is characteristic both in the jokes and in the orally transmitted popular stories that their figures are almost always anonymous, and their temporal and spacial conditions unspecific. But there are exceptions. Certain times and certain characters produce their own series of anecdotes that are then modulated and developed by word of mouth. And great historical personages can also assume stories that originally were coined on anonymous people.

The above mentioned versions of the story were adapted to the Soviet occupation, but Zachariae also found a variant with Shah Abbas I of Persia (1557-1629) as a protagonist. Shah Abbas, a great patron, the modernizer and revitalizer of Persia and a vanquisher of the Uzbek, Ottoman and Portuguese army, was always remembered with much affection in these stories. Another, more modern version is applied to Frederick II of Prussia, the Great (Berlin 1712 – Potsdam 1786), equally beloved and appreciated by his subjects, who became a popular figure of such stories. Even the much admired King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary (1440-1490), an early patron of humanism and culture, responsible for an authentic Hungarian Renaissance and founder of a magnificent library, became a main figure of several popular stories, including the one with the scheme “you said it, not me”.


The above mentioned stories all elaborate and color the scheme in a slightly different manner. To avoid repeating them, here we only tell the one applied to the most beloved king of Mallorca, James I the Conqueror (1208-1276), king of Aragon, Mallorca and Valencia, Count of Barcelona and Urgell, Lord of Montpellier, and father of eight male children from his second wife Violante of Hungary, daughter of King Andreas II of the Árpád dynasty.






This story is included in the collections of Joan Amades (1950) and Francesc Gascón (1999), as well as in vol. 23 of the Rondalles mallorquines d’en Jordi des Recó (1936-72) by Antoni Mª Alcover. This latter, entitled “The king’s horse”, is what we reproduce here, even if it does not explicitly include the name of James I, unlike the other two:

There was a king who had a horse that he loved so much. The horse fell ill, and the king called the surgeon to tell whether the disease could be cured. The surgeon examined it thoroughly, and told that there is no cure for it. The king was grieved very much, and he ordered his servants to take the horse to the seashore [which in Palma is just some hundred meters from the king’s castle], and do their utmost to heal it. And he warned them that whoever would bring him the news of the death of the horse, would be immediately hang up. After two days the horse died, and while the servants were deliberating on how to let the king know about it, a fool passed by who was capable of everything. They asked him:
– Do you want to carry some news to the king?
The fool answered:
– And what do you give me in change?
The servants promised him a thousand golden pounds, and told him what it was all about. The fool agreed. He went to the king and told him:
– You remember the horse you have sent to the shore so it could be cured there? Well, it does not eat.
– How is that possible? – the king asked.
– Yes, and it does not even drink.
– What do you say…
– It does not even piss.
– This cannot be true…
– It does not shit, and does not breath.
– Then it is dead. – the king said.
– Well, you said it, not me – replied the fool.
So he turned back and went to the servants who gave him a thousand pounds.
And the king remained there outsmarted.

Whowever wants to know more about this Mallorcan story and many other popular traditions associated with the figure of King James I the Conqueror, is advised to read the recent volume edited by Carme Oriol and Emili Samper, El rei Jaume I en l’imaginari popular i en la literatura, Tarragona: Universitat Rovira i Virgili – Universitat de les Illes Balears, 2010.