Side by side with literature proper there has always existed in Portugal a literature of the people. Indeed, before Portuguese poetry was written it flourished on the lips of the people, in the songs of the women. Sometimes this popular literature almost coalesced with written literature, as in the case of the _cossantes_ in the thirteenth century. Its poetry lent a glow and magic to the work of Gil Vicente and later to some of the lyrics of Camões; its proverbial lore was reproduced in Jorge Ferreira de Vasconcellos’ prose plays and later by D. Francisco Manuel de Mello; in indigenous folk-tales Trancoso found part of his material. Eighteenth-century writers neglected it, but Filinto Elysio returned to popular sources, and in the nineteenth century they inspired two great poets, Almeida Garrett and João de Deus. Literature and illiteracy have often gone hand in hand. In Ferreira de Vasconcellos’ _Eufrosina_ (Act III, sc. ii) we read of the workwoman (_lavrandeira_) who ‘sings _de solao_, composes songs, loves to learn _trovas_ by heart, gives a schoolboy farthings to buy cherries in return for reading _autos_ to her’; and the _Pratica de Tres Pastores_ gives us a picture of an old peasant reading out from the Bible[700] of an evening to the whole village: Esse velhinho Tinha hum cartapolinho Feito de letra de mão Em papel de pergaminho, E chamava-se o feitinho Do livro da creação. E então Que sempre cada serão Á noyte depois da cea Com oculos á candea O lia por devoção A toda a gente d’aldea.