The subject of the book is primarily an examination of the nature of variation in the versions of a ballad sung to the tunes of a certain folk music type. During the textual analysis of the 75 "László Fehér" ballads of the melodic type, the individual and general features of the versions emerge through a rich perspective comparison. It becomes possible to follow how 'always different' can be 'the same' at the same time, i.e. how the ever-changing text living orally remains "the ballad of László Fehér". The research method is twofold: the analysis of individual ballads based on their structural units is supplemented by an analysis from the opposite direction, with a horizontal point of view, with which the set of variants belonging to the same structural units, which can be virtually assigned to each other, is revealed in its entirety. In this way, different ways of phrasing scenes with the same role become comparable. In addition to showing the variations up close, this two-way examination allows the details to reveal certain hidden meanings. As a result of the complex analysis of the ballad versions, quite a few questions regarding the characters and the internal forces inherent in the ballad can be clarified. The values ​​represented by the ballad can also be clearly read from the variants. Text analysis also includes the material that carries the text, the melody. The last chapter of the book presents the combination of these two: the adaptation to each other, the organization of the text into stanzas, with cases of line repetitions and stanza expansions.