Normally, however, the verses were sung in pubs and taverns, as Pernando himself once declared:

Gizon bertsolariak badegu, bai, lan hau, (The professional of a bertsolari is a hard one)
jaia-arratsak tabernan bostetatik lau, (four out of every five nights and feast days)
ezin erretiratu ez egun ta ez gau (find us hard at work in the taverns with no rest either night or day)
jan t'edan ta jokatu, zurrut eta mamau, (Eating and drinking and playing)
sakelak badirau, okerrena nerau, (drinking and drinking)
badet ezaguer'au (it's hard on the pocket, I'm the worst, I know)
andreak zintzotzeko enkargatzen nau. (my wife keeps telling me to shape up. (free translation)

Pernando Amezketarra was not a typical countryman: hard-working, meek, obedient to his betters, strong but bad-tempered, suspicious but innocent. He was completely the opposite: lazy, always ready to eat at others' (especially priests') expense, favouring wit over brute strength and never slow to attack tailors, scribes and those who lived in towns, using not the strength of his arm or fist, but the sting of his wit.

Food was one of Pernando's obsessions, and he is remembered as being permanently hungry. Someone once asked him what he thought the best things in the world were, and this was his reply:

Osasuna ta pakia, (Health and peace)
andre ona ta dotia, (a good woman and a dowry)
hiru hankeko tupi haundi bat (a large pot with three legs)
txerri-xolomoz ta oilaskoz betia, (full of pork chops and chicken)
zahato potxolo bat napar ardo onez betia (and a generous skin full of good Navarran wine)
nik eskatzen ditudanak hoik tia. (is all that I ask)

Perhaps the thing that best reflects his obsession with food is his death, since he is said to have died as the result of drinking river water after stuffing himself with plums. His last words were: when I die, tell the world loud and clear that Pernando did not die of hunger; despite living half starved and in misery, I died with a full belly.

As the years went by, Pernando Amezketarra's fame grew and grew and today, his exploits and retorts are more famous even than his verses. These stories, passed down from generation to generation in the oral tradition, have been used as the inspiration for both books and even cartoon series.

His work was censured by the Inquisition until after his death in exile. The historian Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo listed him as one of the 'Spanish heterodox', considering him to be an 'unbalanced son of the 18th century'.

This is the reason why his translation works have been largely overlooked, despite their obvious interest. One of his most important works, a translation of the work published by the French Benedictine Dom Sanadon in Pau the previous year, was published in Tolosa in 1786 under the title Ensayo sobre la nobleza de los bascongados para que sirva de introducción a la Historia general de aquellos pueblos, (Essay on the nobility of the Basques to serve as an introduction to the general History of those people).