Oral tradition

An oral tradition or oral culture is a way of transmitting history, literature or law from one generation to the next, without a writing system, by voice. People tell stories. Often the stories are made into poems and songs to make remembering easy. For example, the Homeric poetry of the Iliad and the Odyssey combined oral literature and oral history. Eventually they were written down.

 Related pages 
Legend
Narrative poetry
Oral law
Word of mouth

 Other websites 
 The Center for Studies in Oral Tradition
 The Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature Online 
 Oral Tradition Journal