Storytelling

Poetry, prose and theater, indeed most forms of literary expression evolved from storytelling in the oral tradition.  Stories have been shared in every culture as a means of entertainment, education and cultural preservation.  The Greeks told short stories as epillion or hexameter poems and much longer epic stories.  The Celtic Triads of the Druids were conveyed as verbal instruction. 

“Although they had a written language, the Celts rarely used it, preferring instead to pass on their beliefs, knowledge and wisdom through the time honored method of their oral traditions.  The honored and revered Storytellers, the Seannachaidhs, were a popular fixture around the fire, especially those who told the longest and most intricate tales during the wintertime.  Since daylight hours were scarce that time of year and families spent a lot of time around the light and warmth of the hearths, they became gathering places, where the Seannachaidhs, who burned with the fires of inspiration, would tell stories of the people.”

These storytellers pass down the lore that binds a society.  Folklorists study the knowledge, culture, myths, beliefs and tales of a group.  “When a Folklorist looks at Fairy Tales and finds a prominent pattern such as the number Three (i.e. 3 bears, 3 pigs, 3 Billy goats gruff, 3 notes to the Pied Piper, 3 kittens, Cinderella and her 2 sisters, 3 wishes, 3 characters, 3 tasks to be performed, travel to the third bend in the road, etc.,) recurring in a single culture or among a group of related peoples and does not find the same persistent recurrence in other cultural groups, there is a tendency to categorize such an occurrence as a cultural artifact,” writes Herb O. Buckland.

From Threes, Chapter 9, “Threes in Art and Popular Culture”