What happens when oral texts are removed from their original medium and written down? This collection examines the complex interrelationship between the oral and the written and the problems of textualisation. Taking their point of departure in the theories of orality and literalisation as well as the preserved texts and their transmission the individual contributors, experts from the fields of Old Norse, Old English, Latin and Homeric studies as well as from later Serbian and Norwegian folklore, set out to explore the commonalities and differences in the process of literalisation.