Oral storytelling

[1] The intimacy and connection are deepened by the flexibility of oral storytelling which allows the tale to be molded according to the needs of the audience and the location or environment of the telling.

[2] Some tellers consider anything outside the narrative as extraneous, while other storytellers choose to enhance their telling of the tale with the addition of visual and audio tools, specific actions, and creative strategies and devices.

Community storytelling offered the security of explanation—how life and its many forms began and why things happen—as well as entertainment and enchantment.

Centuries before Scheherazade, the power of storytelling was reflected by Vyasa at the beginning of the Indian epic Mahabharata.

In the Middle Ages, storytellers, also called troubadours or minstrels, could be seen in marketplaces and were honored as members of royal courts.

Medieval storytellers were expected to know the current tales and, in the words of American storyteller Ruth Sawyer, "to repeat all the noteworthy theses from the universities, to be well informed on court scandals, to know the healing power of herbs and simples (medicines), to be able to compose verses for a lord or lady at a moment's notice, and to play on at least two of the instruments then in favor at court."

Two of the storytellers in the court of King Edward I were two women who performed under the names of Matill Makejoye and Pearl in the Egg.

Like the Grimm brothers in Germany, Peter Christen Asbjrnsen and Jorgen Moe collected Norwegian folk tales.