The article questions the usual view that Ferdowsi's main source for the Shâhnâmeh was a written prose history of pre-islamic Iran commissioned by Abu Mansur Abd al-Razzâq. It is pointed out that Ferdowsi's claim to have had access to such a history is conventional in character and is paralleled in other chronicles. The article discusses the so-called older-preface to the Shâhnâmeh and al-Tha'âlebi's history in the light of this claim. It concludes by pointing out that the rhetoric of the Shâhnâmeh fits Parry's and Lord's descriptions of oral verse rhetoric and suggests that, for the legendary part of the poem (up to the advent of the Sasanians), Ferdowsi in all probability used versified oral rather than written prose, sources, or if he used written sources these were in verse and derived from an oral tradition. It is accepted that for the Sasanian portion of the poem written prose sources were probably used