On the Application of the Concepts of Active and Inactive Traditions to the Study of Repertory

OF THE MANY CONTRIBUTIONS to theory and nomenclature for which folklorists are indebted to Carl von Sydow, perhaps the most important concerns the transmission of folklore by the two kinds of tradition bearers he designated as active and passive. Knowledge of the concept is justifiably widespread, and it appears so simple-and therefore obviously correct-that one sometimes wonders, as a result of the casualness with which it is treated, if all of its implications are fully understood.