ABSTRACT
Once upon a time, as we say, human beings maintained their family and community, in part, by telling stories about the past. They still do. Stories were generally oral, not written. Stories often contained as much fiction as fact. The storyteller might also be a healer or a magician. Today, literary critics talk of narratives more than stories. But story and narrative form the same linked chains of tales about the past. Stories tell of the past in ways that give meaning and coherence to the present.
