See Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: the oral traditions of Kossovo have neatened things up considerably (just like Roncesvalles) in the inter4ests of making a better story. On the other hand, a lot of trivialities will be right - especially if they fit the meter.
(There is great story about the dealings of anthrologists and other God_learners with their material: seems this lady folklorist went down to Padstow in Cornwall before the war, and found that one of the two main dancers in their local folk-dance was dressed up as a woman. This fitted her Theory, so she published it. She came back in 1941 or so, and found the same dancer dressed as a clown. She stood out from the audience - and denoundec him for Doing It Wrong.)
Paul MacLean Anderson
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There was a TV program about Troy the other night, where they looked into the possible accuracy of Homer's stories, given that they'd pased through oral tradition for a few centuries before being written down. As a comparison, someone investigated the oral traditions of Eastern Europe, which are *still* being passed down even now. They found a description of a battle several centuries earlier, and compared it with written accounts. It was accurate. And I know they said some of the stories being remembered were considerably longer than the Iliad. I *think* (based on a reminder via Google) that I'm thinking of Serbian oral tradition and the battle of Kosovo in 1389.
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