ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book provides a limited set of observations on a very small sample of oral narrative events. They have some illustrative value, providing examples of some of the changes that occur in the narrative structure of a single tale in oral performance and transmission. In context as well as form, Mādar Zāher’s composition, Šīr o Palang, fits traditional generic rules. Yet Mādar Zāher’s distinction between afeāneh and naql is somewhat idiosyncratic, in that she excludes from the category of afsāneh certain long, non-didactic entertainment tales. The author's collecting experience and that of others confirms the fact that new romances are still being composed orally in Persian in western Afghanistan. Her interpretation of Mādar Zāher’s revision of Mār Čučeh argues that the changes she made in that tale were also not random, but systematic in their effect on narrative structure.
