Book excerpt: "Passed down by word of mouth through the magic of live performance art for a millennium and a half till its scholarly transcription in the late 19th century, the Armenian epic Daredevils of Sasun presents a rich legacy of accumulated folk wisdom. This monograph is an introduction to the epic, maintaining a balance between the needs of a scholarly and more popular readership. Contextualizing his subject within the epic production of Western Europe, the Slavic lands, Anatolia and the Caucasus, and Central Asia, the author not only provides a summation of research on the epic, but is cogent in defining his own positions, probing new areas, and approaching some old from a new perspective."--BOOK JACKET.