There is an oral tradition among the members of the population in regard to the origin and subsequent separate status of the group in the larger society.

Since none of these glimpses of poetizing without writing is intended to incorporate a signature into the epic matter, there is prima-facie evidence that Beowulf and the Homeric poems each derive from an oral tradition.

But we can say that since a writing poet, with leisure before him, would seem unlikely to invent a technique based upon frequent and substantial circumlocution, the kennings like the epithets must reasonably be ascribed to an oral tradition.

To the extent that a tale is twice told, its final author must be suspect, although plagiarism in an oral tradition is less a misdemeanor than the standard modus dicendi.

A long evolution in an oral tradition caused the poetic language of the heroic age to be based upon formulas that show the important qualities of things, and these formulas are therefore potentially rather than always actually accurate.

in an oral tradition they may be chosen for the entire epic corpus, and tend towards idealization rather than distinctive delineation.

Enthusiastically, Americans have swept subliterary and bogus materials like Paul Bunyan tales, Abe Lincoln anecdotes and labor union songs up as true products of our American oral tradition.

Nor have we remembered that in the melting pot of America the hundreds of isolated and semi-isolated ethnic, regional and occupational groups did not fuse into a homogeneous national unit until long after education and industrialization had caused them to cast oral tradition aside as a means of carrying culturally significant material.

Rabbi Trugman explains that it is through oral tradition that the meanings of the Torah, its commandments and stories, are known and understood.

Walter Goffart believes it is probable that in this narrative Paul was making use of an oral tradition, and is sceptical that it can be dismissed as merely a typical topos of an epic poem.

This is probably a confusion that entered oral tradition from Wace's Roman de Brut.

The author of Acts likely relied upon oral tradition, as well as other sources, in constructing his account of the early church and Paul's ministry.

The population of the city throughout the centuries maintained an oral tradition that had originally been Roman.

The 11th century date is due to scholars who argue that, rather than transcription of the tale from the oral tradition by a literate monk, Beowulf reflects an original interpretation of the story by the poet.

The question of whether Beowulf was passed down through oral tradition prior to its present manuscript form has been the subject of much debate, and involves more than the mere matter of how it was composed.

Rather, given the implications of the theory of oral-formulaic composition and oral tradition, the question concerns how the poem is to be understood, and what sorts of interpretations are legitimate.

Scholarly discussion about Beowulf in the context of the oral tradition was extremely active throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

The poem is composed orally and extemporaneously, and the archive of tradition on which it draws is oral, pagan, Germanic, heroic, and tribal.

There is a third view that sees merit in both arguments above and attempts to bridge them, and so cannot be articulated as starkly as they can ; it sees more than one Christianity and more than one attitude towards paganism at work in the poem, separated from each other by hundreds of years ; it sees the poem as originally the product of a literate Christian author with one foot in the pagan world and one in the Christian, himself a convert perhaps or one whose forbears had been pagan, a poet who was conversant in both oral and literary milieus and was capable of a masterful " repurposing " of poetry from the oral tradition ; this early Christian poet saw virtue manifest in a willingness to sacrifice oneself in a devotion to justice and in an attempt to aid and protect those in need of help and greater safety ; good pagan men had trodden that noble path and so this poet presents pagan culture with equanimity and respect ; yet overlaid upon this early Christian poet's composition are verses from a much later reformist " fire-and-brimstone " Christian poet who vilifies pagan practice as dark and sinful and who adds satanic aspects to its monsters.

M. H. Abrams and Stephen Greenblatt assert in their introduction to Beowulf in the Norton Anthology of English Literature that, " The poet was reviving the heroic language, style, and pagan world of ancient Germanic oral poetry it is now widely believed that Beowulf is the work of a single poet who was a Christian and that his poem reflects well-established Christian tradition.

John Miles Foley held, specifically with reference to the Beowulf debate, that while comparative work was both necessary and valid, it must be conducted with a view to the particularities of a given tradition ; Foley argued with a view to developments of oral traditional theory that do not assume, or depend upon, finally unverifiable assumptions about composition, and that discard the oral / literate dichotomy focused on composition in favor of a more fluid continuum of traditionality and textuality.

The ballads do not have any known author or correct version ; instead, having been passed down mainly by oral tradition since the Middle Ages, there are many variations of each.

The ballads remained an oral tradition until the increased interest in folk songs in the 18th century led collectors such as Bishop Thomas Percy to publish volumes of popular ballads.

Although written literature is only slowly evolving ( due to the predominance of French as the " language of the educated "), there exists a wealth of oral literature, which is often tales of kings and heroes.

Orthodox Judaism, as it exists today, is an outgrowth that claims to extend from the time of Moses, to the time of the Mishnah and Talmud, through the development of oral law and rabbinic literature, until the present time.

It exists mainly as a mixture of mythological stories and historical legends recorded in local annals such as the Chronicles of Huayang compiled in the Jin Dynasty ( 265 – 420 ), and oral literature such as the folk stories of Emperor Duyu 杜宇 who lost his kingdom and died a miserable death.

The Pharisees believed that in addition to the written Torah recognized by both the Sadducees and Pharisees and believed to have been written by Moses, there exists another Torah, consisting of the corpus of oral laws and traditions transmitted by God to Moses orally, and then memorized and passed down by Moses and his successors over the generations.

There exists a problem in verifying most Native American prophecy, in that they remain primarily an oral tradition, and thus there is no way to cite references of where writings have been committed to paper.

Hearsay information can even be obtained by oral testimony given over a telephone, or through an anonymous or confidential informant, so long as probable cause exists based on the totality of the circumstances.

After successful intravenous tocolysis, little evidence exists that oral terbutaline is effective.

Little historical information exists about this period of Greenpoint's history other than the personal papers and recorded oral history of these five families.

The Ibibio have lived in the Cross River area of modern day Nigeria for several hundred years, and while written information about them only exists in colonial records from the late 19th century on, oral traditions have them in the region much earlier than this.

At common law, and under various statutes pertaining to a given jurisdiction, a right to action for damages, or for a statutory penalty or forfeiture, exists against a witness who, without sufficient excuse, fails or refuses to give oral testimony or to produce documents or other specified items in obedience to the command of a properly issued and served subpoena.

Sami religion is also based on archaeological remains and written sources from missionary work in northern Scandinavia during the Middle Ages and up to the early 18th century, though some of the knowledge exists as family oral tradition.

An oral preparation exists, but is not yet commercially available.

There exists a body of oral history and some artefacts which are called on in support of this notion, but it is a contentious issue.

Much of what is known about Nanny comes from oral history as little textual evidence exists.

In other countries oral and maxillofacial surgery as a specialty exists but under different forms as the work is sometimes performed by a single or dual qualified specialist depending on each country's regulations and training opportunities available.

The Ecuadorian décima is an oral poetic form that exists among the black population of the Esmeraldas Province.

Although no formal written agreement exists, the Government acknowledges that an oral undertaking was given by a senior government official at a meeting of the Cranford Residents ' and District Amenities Association on 31 July 1952.

A textile museum ( Musée du Textile ) exists to conserve the traditional machines used to create the famous handkerchiefs made in this town, as well as the techniques used to make them and the oral and local history associated with the industry.