Where did story telling come from?

In many cultures, story telling was a way in which to pass down the history of the people, the important dates, the important people and a way in which to teach the younger generation ways in which to better themselves through proper living(i.e, morals, experience, etc).

Oral story telling has been around forever and is still in use today, but written history tends to be much more accurate then oral history and thus with the advent of the movable type printing press, the knowledge of generations is passed along to the masses of people rather than just those able to listen to the story-teller.

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Stories and legends came from actual events that happened like around the times of the Celts, Vikings and Nomads in Europe, which is around 900-800 BC.

They started off from actual events that happened during those times, but not everyone could script or write, in fact most of these races of people didn't have writing for a long time after wards, so one person told what happened to others and then those told what happened and it got passed down from generation to GENERATION and eventually someone drew it or wrote it down and it became a story or a legend as the tale had been changed a little to make it seem more exciting and then ended up being really far from the average normal event of something back then. A good example of these kind of stories is Roman and Celtic Gods.

Of course then people also made up stories to scare children in behaving or to teach them lessons. Then people began writing stories and fairy tales for children's and people superstitions and of course entertainment. Eventually People began recording events that where happening or that happened,(e.g The Christian Bible).

Stories turned into plays and great works of literature, then lyrics to music etc.

In Ireland stories are still important to us as part of our Heritage and culture, in fact its the same fo most European countries, excluding England, and those stories used to be important so that people remembered their history, to earn a sense of pride in their heritage, entertainment, superstition and many other reasons.

Most stories have a certain type of gore or flare about them that can be trademarked to certain culture, like celtic fairy tales are what we have here in Ireland and are certainly different but based on some truth, Germany also have similar stories but told a little differently.

I usually love to listen to the story, but not any more. When I sometimes do it I feel bore. Searching the web and watching movies now interest me more; even I still miss the feeling of friends sitting together and listening to an elder telling a story.

In the Lands of the North, where the black rocks stand guard against the cold sea, in the dark night that is very long, the men of the Northlands sit by their great log fires and they tell a tale...

We do tell stories, but now, they're in book and movie form, not said aloud (unless you like audiobooks). Stories are an escape from reality, with morals/lessons, and some are just fun!