Introduction: The oral theory in context / by John Miles Foley --

The intricate web: thematic cohesion in Russian oral tradition verse narrative / Patricia Arant --

Myth and ritual: two faces of tradition / David E. Bynum --

Flyting in Beowulf and rebuke in The song of Bagdad: the question of theme / Francelia Clark --

The Beowulf-poet: master of sound-patterning / Robert P. Creed --

Legitimation and the hero's exemplary function in the Cantar de mio Cid and the Chanson de Roland / Joseph J. Duggan --

Feasts and anti-feasts in Beowulf and the Odyssey / Joanne De Lavan Foley --

Tradition-dependent and -independent features in oral literature: a comparative view of the formula / John Miles Foley --

The memory of Cædmon / Donald K. Fry --

The religious ballad of New Mexico and the Canary Islands: a comparative study of traditional features / William González --

Genealogy as oral genre in a Serbian village / Barbara Kerewsky Halpern --

Satire and the heroic life: two studies (Helgakviđa Hundingsbana I, 18 and Bjorn Hitdœlakappi's Grámagaflim) / Joseph Harris --

Oral composition in Middle High German epic poetry / Edward R. Haymes --

Narrative as precedent in Yorùbá oral tradition / Deidre La Pin --

Hispanic and South Slavic traditional narrative poetry and related forms: a survey of comparative studies (1824-1977) / John S. Miletich --

An evolutionary model for the text fixation of Homeric Epos / Gregory Nagy --

Formula and formulaic system in Beowulf / John D. Niles --

Oral-formulaic context: implications for the comparative criticism of mediaeval texts / Alain Renoir --

Oral literature in the Middle Ages / Bruce A. Rosenberg --

Memory, fixity, and genre in oral traditional poetries / with an essay by Albert Bates Lord.