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This paper provides a reflection about anonymity and authorship in folk poetry in general and in the Greek folk poetry in particular. Anonymity means absence of an author with historical entity and it is a characteristic feature of folk poetry. On the other hand, every text has an author, but the author of folk poetry has a different relationship with his work from the literary author; he is constrained in his task by the traditionality of themes and form, wich are related to the extraliterary fonction of folk poetry. Four interesting cases of Greek folk poetry are analised which have been attributed by the tradition to historically existing authors, and the reasons of such attribution are investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]