Dissertation begins with Introduction which explains the dissertation’s topic, structure, used materials, methodology, aim of research and hypotheses. Ten chapters follow the Introduction. The first chapter entitled Zagora deals with geographical and historical characteristics of Zagora region, its church organization and basic industries. It is followed by chapter under the title Ivan Aralica which gives biographic information on the mentioned writer and review of his opus with a special accent put on novels: Put bez sna, Duše robova, Graditelj svratišta and Asmodejev šal which constitute the Morlak tetralogy. The third chapter is entitled The review of poetics and history of Croatian oral literature. Oral and written literature are language products which are realized differently. The oral literature is realized in speech, but also accompanied by nonverbal communication signs (gestures, facial expression, tone of voice, position of body and its movements, etc.) that complement the speaker’s verbal performance. Author of a written literary text when communicating his or her ideas, thoughts and feelings uses only written word placed on a surface, usually paper. There is a difference in their function, too. The written literature has a primarily aesthetic function contrary to the oral literature that, alongside the aesthetic function, retains a social function. To become tradition and ensure its further existence, the oral literature must be accepted by a community in which it is performed, while the written text can exist regardless of the communities’ acceptance. During its history the oral literature has had different names: national, anonymous, folk, peasant, traditional literature and folklore. Majority of these names testify about its collective character and belonging to a community. There are three phases in relationship between the oral and the written literature: the first, agraphic phase during which there is only oral literature; the second in which oral and written literature coexist, but the oral literature dominates; the third phase in which both varieties coexist, but the written literature takes the primary position. There has always been communication between the oral and the written literature and literary substance has mostly moved from the oral towards the written literature, except for the middle Ages when the direction was opposite. Oral literature was incorporated into the written literature in three basic ways: by commenting and collecting, by incorporating the complete examples, by using language and style of the oral creations and designing its motifs and topics in a new manner. It is important to adapt the forms taken from 308 the oral literature to the poetics and the purpose of a text in which they are incorporated. The chapter ends with presentation of the oral literature system which will be used to classify oral literal forms obtained by analysis of Aralica’s novels. Oral literal system used in this paper is adopted from Marko Dragić and it consists of: Lyrical poetry; Epic poetry, Stories; Drama (folk theatre); Rhetorical (oral rhetorical) forms; Microstructures (proverbs, riddles). The fourth chapter on oral stories defines that literary genre and divides it into subgenres: fairy tales, fables, tales, novellas, anecdotes, jokes and legends. Among the before mentioned subgenres of stories the tales are the most numerous. Tale is a story genre which content is believed in. Tales are classified according to motif, topic, function and other criteria. Dragić’s classification of tales which lists six types of tales is used in the paper: historical tales, etiological tales, eschatological tales, mythical (mythological) tales, demonic (demonological) tales and life stories. The fourth chapter defines and classifies the oral tales found during the analysis of the Morlak tetralogy novels. The tales are listed and analyzed in the chronological order taking into consideration the novel in which they are found and their placement in the analyzed novel’s plot. Thus, the analyzed tales from the novel Put bez sna are listed first, followed by the tales from novels Duše robova, Graditelj svratišta and Asmodejev šal. The chapter analyzes the tales about the history of Grabovac and Kopčić families, desecrating a crucifix, history of Franciscan monastery in Rama and the migration from Rama to Dalmatia, swineherd Pako and his life, a drunk who became a monk, miraculous willow and zduhači (people with supernatural abilities). In the novel Duše robova there are tales about Judas’ tree, a donkey that was allowed to pass judgement of a deceased man’s life, a group of etiological tales, tales about Our Lady of Sinj and the defense of Sinj against the Turks and about the devil’s church. The tale about the life and the death of Diva Grabovčeva has the central place among the tales found in the novel Graditelj svratišta. Other tales found in that novel talk about two men from Sinj and a buried treasure, Didak Bunčić’s cap, a black stallion that has lived from time immemorial at the bottom of the Red lake near Imotski and about the power that a snake has over its prey. Group of tales from the novel Asmodejev šal consists of tales fitted into homilies, a tale about Kunigunda and Teobald, a tale about an advice that Niža Plavša gave to a woman abused by her husband, a tale about queen’s love that made her ready to die to save her husband from a certain death, a tale about the price of immortality and absolute knowledge and a tale about the arrogant king Charles V. Legend is an oral story with religious character whose protagonists are Jesus Christ, Virgin Mary, saints and other extraordinary people. The main characteristic of legends which differentiates them from other genres of oral stories is a 309 miracle that rectifies the injustice, does good and makes the evil go away. Legends are similar to hagiographies that speak about the lives of saints. Legends are found in the novel Put bez sna and they speak about the life and deeds of Pavao Vučković, an immigrant from Rama who complained in front of a crucifix to Jesus Christ about the troubles of his life and got an answer from Jesus and about the death of Rama monastery abbot Stjepan Matić who was miraculously ascended to heaven in front of a crowd of people. Novella is a short prose genre characterized by its realism. Novella speaks about ordinary people and their lives. In Put bez sna there is a novella about a man called Stupalo who killed his neighbor’s pig without a reason before it fatted enough, but as an answer to his action the neighbor killed him. In Asmodejev šal there are two novellas. The first is about saint Bernardino and two peasants who travelled with him. Saint Bernardino taught an overly confident and arrogant peasant not to rely on his own strengths too much. The second novella is about a man called Kokan whose wagon got stuck in mud. People who knew him did not want to help him, but there was a stranger that came by and tried to help him. However, when he saw that Kokan was unwilling to do anything to help himself, he left him in the mud. Anecdotes are short and humorous stories about people characterized by humoristic and playful tone. An example of an anecdote is a story about Anđa Furtula and the way she answered the priest during a confession. The second anecdote is about a hungry poor man who found a book and said: What a pitty! Three hundred words, and nothing to eat! (Kakva šteta! Riječi trista, a izjesti nema ništa!). Both anecdotes are found in Asmodejev šal. Joke is a minor oral story related to anecdotes which provokes a comic impression. That is a genre of oral story which talks about people, events and phenomena in a humoristic, ironic and satiric way and protagonists of jokes can also be animals and objects. In Graditelj svratišta there is a political joke that criticizes government in a cynical manner. The fifth chapter is dedicated to oral poems. Oral poems are divided into epic and lyrical poems. Epic poem speaks about fateful phenomena, events and people. It is often called heroic poem, and, in our region, the most common poems are about the wars with the Turks. Lyrical poem is also called female poem because its main characteristic is sensibility. The lyrical poem has an indefinite thematic range and follows a human being from its birth to its death. In the novels of the Morlak tetralogy poems occur in a couple of places but are mostly found just in fragments or paraphrased and fitted into the prose text. Speaking about the epic poems through his characters Aralica shatters the romantic image of war as often presented in the epic poems. The lyrical poetry is in contrast with the epic poetry and the life filled with warfare. 310 The sixth chapter entitled Oral-rhetorical forms is dedicated to oral literal forms in which words are used in different combinations: in religious rituals, to heal, to exorcise evil or to invoke it on someone, to invoke good luck, to play and learn. Rhetorical forms are divided into: exorcisms, toasts, chants, tongue twisters, blessings/prayers and curses. Only curses are found in the Morlak tetralogy. In form curses are similar to proverbs. It was believed that a curse has power to inflict evil. The seventh chapter is entitled Microstructures and it refers to proverbs. Proverbs are the shortest form in the system of oral literature and so they are classified as microstructures. They speak about universal human life experiences and truths, therefore they keep the same or similar form and meaning for a long time. Proverbs are divided into: real or full proverbs, sayings, dialogic proverbs, proverb-anecdotes and pareologisms. Real proverbs and sayings are found in the analyzed novels. The chapter on folk beliefs deals with all the phenomena which people believed in regardless if the beliefs belonged to some of the official religious systems or they were part of a superstition. The paper cites examples of beliefs on luck in battle, revenge, comets, exchange of souls, blessing of a murder site, omens of events to come, divination, the appearance of demonic entity mora, vows and folk medicine. Folk medicine is not based on scientific evidence. It is rooted in folk beliefs. The ninth chapter analyzes the folk customs which Aralica described in the Morlak tetralogy novels. The examples of folk customs depict events from family life, games, dances and celebration of feast days. The final, tenth, chapter interprets examples of oral literature and traditional heritage found in novels Život nastanjen sjenama and Bunar na turskoj granici. Interpretation is preceded by reviews of the novels and their critical reception. In Život nastanjen sjenama there are following oral literal forms: a tale with etiological and eschatological character about Josip Rabo, etiological tale about the origin of family name Dželalija and toponym Grudinice, life story about Joza Cacanov, fragments of lyrical poem and entire poems, with love and historic topic, short poems made up for different occasions, prayers, curses, proverbs and sayings. In the same novel there are descriptions od folk custom and beliefs: egg coloring, guarding the Christ’s grave, exorcism. Saint Martin and Candlemas are also mentioned. Bunar na turskoj granici describes the life of shepherds on Dinara’s mountain pastures during the summer months and so, in accordance to the topic, the writer included in the novel a tale about two 311 extraordinary wolves that has characteristics of a demonological tale. It is followed by an etiological tales about sheep owned by the Maglov family and the reason why they were called Maglovljeve čule. The tale used by Paškalj Škarica to explain to Điđi Sekanin why a mirrors should not be brought when going to the mountain is a mythological tale, and a tale about fairy and witch gardens is similar to it. Poems within Bunar na turskoj granici are mostly fragments, and narrator says that some of the longer poems were cobbled together in a funny versification typical for the town of Knin. These poems describe some local phenomena, people and their customs. Bunar, as well as previous novels, is rich in proverbs and sayings. There are interesting descriptions of a milking competition, a custom that occurred each summer on the mountain pastures of Dinara and the custom of people becoming blood brothers and blood sisters. The paper ends with Conclusion and References. Key words: Ivan Aralica, Morlak tetralogy, Život nastanjen sjenama, Bunara na turskoj granici, oral literature, tradition, oral stories, oral poems, rhetorical forms, microstructures, folk beliefs, folk customs.