Usage of есть

[giantantattack.livejournal.com]

I'm currently reading a book entitled «Откуда есть пошел букварь» printed in 1983 in Minsk. I was told by some of my Russian-speaking friends that the addition of the word есть is probably a way of stylizing the title so it sounds older. However, they couldn't explain much more about its usage. When was this an acceptable use of есть, and how did it function grammatically in this context?