Balkan folktales and illiterate bards who recite them recently helped unlock secrets of Homer that had puzzled highly-educated scholars for centuries. So I don't discount the value of those old stories or the people who know them. Throughout history many of the greatest of authors have sought wisdom not from the sophists and orators but from rustic farmers.

You learned the things you needed to learn and you survived. The ability to stay alive is infinitely more useful than the ability to quote poetry, yes?