A wide-ranging study of popular poetry and song in the Greek language from the last years of the Byzantine Empire to the present day. The folk poetry of the title includes the songs, composed and handed down by word of mouth, of unlettered villagers, of wandering minstrels with pretensions to professionalism, and, in more recent times, of the poorer inhabitants of Ottoman and Greek cities. The creative period of this folk poetry covers, at the minimum, 500 years of history and a geographical area stretching from Corsica in the west to Cyprus and Trebizond in the east, as well as northwards into the Balkans. This is not a general or theoretical survey of folk poetry, but an exploration, based on literary, historical and sociological evidence, of a single cultural tradition and the forces which have shaped it.