What distinguishes folklorists from representatives of related disciplines who do similar things - go to the field, collect intentional data and subject them to rigorous analysis and interpretation - for diverse disciplinary purposes? Folklorists are unique in their study of folklore for its own sake, as the folk creates, adapts, recreates stories, songs, dances and proverbs.

The folklorist observes personal creativity as individuals shape traditional materials, assisted by a critical audience and sanctioned by a tradition-minded community.

The twenty essays in this book, divided into four sections, represent the author's ideas, theories and methodological approaches to folk narrative.

The first makes the case for narrator-orientation as a field-ethnography-based humanistic approach; the second introduces the narrator's personality and Weltanschauung as key to his/her motivation and art; the third discusses the intricacies and dynamics of story-transmission and dissemination; and the fourth presents case studies that illustrate Linda Degh's method of analysis of narrative performance. She focuses on individual creators of variants that link up in processes of narrative development leading to dissemination, and the formation of types and subtypes.

She shows how much more this method can reveal of the nature of folklore.