THE teller of stories has everywhere and always found eager listeners.
Whether his tale is the mere report of a recent happening, a legend of long
ago, or an elaborately contrived fiction, men and women have hung upon his
words and satisfied their yearnings for information or amusement, for incite-
ment to heroic deeds, for religious edification, or for release from the over-
powering monotony of their lives. In villages of central Africa, in outrigger
boats on the Pacific, in the Australian bush, and within the shadow of
Hawaiian volcanoes, tales of the present and of the mysterious past, of
animals and gods and heroes, and of men and women like themselves, hold
listeners in their spell or enrich the conversation of daily life. So it is also in
Eskimo igloos under the light of seal-oil lamps, in the tropical jungles of
Brazil, and by the totem poles of the British Columbian coast. In Japan too,
and China and India, the priest and the scholar, the peasant and the artisan
all join in their love of a good story and their honor for the man who tells
it well.

When we confine our view to our own occidental world, we see that for at
least three or four thousand years, and doubtless for ages before, the art of the
story-teller has been cultivated in every rank of society. Odysseus entertains
the court of Alcinous with the marvels of his adventures. Centuries later we
find the long-haired page reading nightly from interminable chivalric
romances to entertain his lady while her lord is absent on his crusade.
Medieval priests illustrate sermons by anecdotes old and new, and only some-
times edifying. The old peasant, now as always, whiles away the winter
evening with tales of wonder and adventure and the marvelous workings
of fate. Nurses tell children of Goldilocks or the House that Jack Built.

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