The monkey forms a friendship with a shark in the tales of the peoples who live on the shores of the Indian Ocean, such as the Swahili, but in the old Indian version the monkey meets a crocodile, for his tree stands near a river.  In this way the storyteller remains a step or two ahead of his keenest audience.

Modern society has split the functions of the storyteller into those of the news reporter, folklorist, television entertainer, and short story writer, as well as the comedian.

In societies without electricity or telephone, no news penetrates except by word of mouth.  It is the storyteller whose alert ears catch the news and whose quick mind weaves it into his latest recast of an old fable.  The storyteller in such news-starved societies also is a teacher who can explain many things that we learn in school.  In his stories he can make as many loops and excursions around the subjects of his tales as he chooses.  For instance, many among his dramatis personae are animals (in Africa even more than in Asia). The storyteller describes each animal in his fable, imitates its call or growl, tells the children what it eats (naughty little children, for instance) and so creates the tension necessary to keep his audience’s interest.

In this way the people listen to a good story and, at the same time, get a lesson in natural history.  Not, of course, what we would call science, with our preference for dry facts, but observations about the world interlarded with what we now call superstition, folk belief, or myth.

Nevertheless, the storyteller is astute enough to speak to the king and his court at an urbane, courtly level, to the people in the villages at another level, and to scholars at another, more intellectual level.  He knows the esoteric meanings of his tales as well as their mystic interpretation.  He is a scholar.  He can recite the ancient ballads and heroic epics, and he sings songs of all types: religious, amorous, erotic, elegiac.  Because he knows all the old traditions he is consulted about herbal medicines, the massage of hurting limbs, and, most important, the stars.  He knows not only the past but the future.  In this way, he learns new human secrets every day.  Shall we begin?

The new king and his storyteller

On the day after the old king was buried, the young king sat on his father’s throne and invited the courtiers to come tell him about their work.