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Latvian folk-songs belong to the oral tradition that is much older than their first printed and hand-written records from the 19th and 16th-17th century, respectively. They are characterized by several features that have been ascribed by researchers of folk poetry to an archaic poetic tradition. One such feature is, for instance, the magical nature of the songs and their close relation to traditions: a great number of folk-songs represent "commentary on a ritual" with the purpose of structuring the ritual taking place in family events or other festivities and to explain the magic essence of the actions performed. Another feature that is evidence of the age of the songs is the shortness of the texts, their structure, and the methods of stringing them together. Each quatrain in trochaic or dactylic verse is like a "snapshot" that expresses some observation, lesson, or feeling or describes some magical or practical act. As they were being sung, the texts were strung together in two ways: in tradition songs, in accordance with the sequence of the ritual, in other cases, in accordance with the theme, image, or a certain word. Latvians also know songs that are made after the model of lyrical songs or epic ballads widespread in Europe, but the older foundation is the stringing of quatrains without developing a narrative and attaching them to one, narrow range melody. Likewise, the contents of the folk-songs, dealing as it is with the everyday life of the peasant, is considered older than the theme of love. Their mythology is recognized as a good source of research into the archaic concepts of the Indo-Europeans.
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