Contra Lekobide

Laburpena

Basing his study on the "Crónica Ibargüen-Cachopin y el Canto de Lelo" by J. Urquijo (RIEV, 1922 and 1924), the author analyses the "Canto de los Cántabros", a fake included in the "Crónica Ibargüen-Cachopin" of the late 16th century, and reproduced (with changes in the text, and above all in the commentary) in later works also alluded to by Urquijo (Moguel, Humboldt, Allende-Salazar, Guerra, etc.).
   After pointing out that the text is only partly intelligible, owing to anomalies of metre and language put in to produce a sensation of antiquity and therefore of authenticity, the author rejects readings and interpretations that fail to approach the tone of the original manuscript. He establishes that leco bjdi (except, in Biscaya) is a form, to be expected in the old Biscayan dialect, of a verb lek(h)ot/lek(h)at (of which there is also evidence in Etxepare, Leizarraga, Pouvreau etc.) plus the 3rd person singular imperative of the intransitive auxiliary. For this reason, there is no basis for the hypothetical Lekobide, understood as the chieftain of the Cantabrians in the time of Augustus.