ABSTRACT
Folklore is no longer viewed as a true or a false copy of some background “original,” but as a presentation the formulation of which is influenced by various factors, some of which favor constancy, others variation from one performance to the next. There are many such factors, and they can all be classified as “rules for reproduction.” The performance from memory by a folklore expert cannot be viewed in isolation, as having no connection with the other factors behind the production and regeneration of tradition. Obviously poems in Kalevala meter are “remembered” more easily by virtue of their meter than prose narratives, and a small-scale riddle with an image firmly attached to the answer is easier to recall word-for-word than some longer item. The special features of the genre and the performing context are almost inseparably tied up with the personality of the folklore expert and his method of memorizing (Kaivola-Bregenhøj 1985). When a narrator tells the same story on different occasions, he is by no means merely repeating an item of folklore he knows off by heart; instead he creates a new version, drawing on the facts and fragments stored in his memory.
