ABSTRACT
Story-telling is often regarded as the ‘ur’ form, the base of all the arts. It combines the art of the tale, regarded in the Irish proverb as ‘worth more than all the wealth of the world’, with the fundamental human propensity for seeing life in the form of stories. Story-telling has also played a vital part in esoteric and religious traditions, the simplicity, wisdom and depth of stories providing a form of teaching as important for the adult on the high slopes of spiritual search as for the child on the foothills of knowledge. Market-place story-telling was typical in many cultures and is to be observed, for example in Morocco. Magic is a universal ingredient of different oral traditions, a central representation of the transformative power which stories and story-telling possess. Preparation involves attending to the story as well as the circumstances in which it may be told, the nature of the event and the kind of audience.
