Folk Literature

Three great epics and folk legends — oral storytelling

Folk literature ICH includes the three heroic epics — the Tibetan King Gesar, the Kirghiz Manas and the Mongolian Jangar (Gesar and Manas are on the UNESCO list) — alongside the Butterfly Lovers, the White Snake, Liu Sanjie's songs and the Mulan legend. Carried by word of mouth, they hold a people's memory and moral imagination, kept alive by bards in festival and ritual at the heart of China's oral tradition.

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