ABSTRACT
The folktale in Italy, like all stories, comes from the art of language, from the art of the word, spoken and heard. The success of the communal evening depends on the storyteller’s ability to tell the story so well that the listeners imagine the tale and, by their desire, attention, and responses, become part of it. A story that stinks of decay, with bones that allow no life now, should be left alone. People like stories. They see the pattern of life in them. Anthropologists assure people that humans have been telling stories at their camp fires, under great shade trees, everywhere they lived, even before ancient civilizations existed. The storytellers during historical times were, and in some places still are, the professional bards and the family storytellers. Over many centuries the oral tradition coexisted with the written, literary stories. Written stories could travel far and be preserved in libraries.
