On Lies and Frozen Waters. On the Origin of a Romanian Idiom

Taking as a point of departure an explanation given by the Romanian poet George Coșbuc concerning the origin of the set phrase minte de îngheață apele (literally, ‘one lies so much that water freezes over’), I will propose a different phraseological etymology, providing evidence extracted mostly from some Romanian fairy tales collected by Petre Ispirescu. In my opinion, the origin of the respective idiom has nothing to do with the fake information circulated by ancient calendars (similar to almanacs), but rather with certain magical practices or sorcery which, in time, became old-fashioned, unreliable and, therefore, associated with lying.