Certain now that he had his audience's full attention, Belgarath began to utilize all those subtle tricks of the storyteller's art. He altered pitch and volume. He changed cadences. Sometimes, his voice dropped to a whisper. He was obviously enjoying himself enormously. He described the simultaneous charge on the dragon in glowing detail. He told of the dragon's initial retreat, adding gratuitously a wholly fictional feeling of triumph in the hearts of the two knights and their belief that they had struck mortal blows with their lances. Though this last was not entirely true, it helped to heighten the suspense.
— The Malloreon: Seeress of Kell
One of the oldest archetypes and basically the seed from which This Very Wiki grows: characters that are noted for their ability to tell tales, or at least their propensity to do so. Storytellers, whether a Eccentric Mentor at a campfire or The Bard in a court, help to spread a society's values, culture and beliefs. If done well, the moral emerges naturally from the tale.
Sometimes the storyteller's tales have a purpose in the main plot, as Foreshadowing or maybe even as a Framing Device. At other times it is simply an interesting side excursion, perhaps to give more richness to the Worldbuilding by letting us learn about the setting's history and culture.
Sometimes overlaps with Miles Gloriosus and The Münchausen. Could conceivably be made to overlap with Intrepid Reporter, if the journalist is getting people to tell their stories. Possibly a reflection of Most Writers Are Writers. Compare with The Bard.
Super-Trope to Consummate Storyteller, the key distinction being that the Consummate Storyteller can either come up with the tale on the spot or have it be utterly believable, often to the point characters hearing the story might live it.
For the Jim Henson series, see here, and for the video game, see here.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Ejima Junko from The Daichis - Earth's Defense Family had told several stories to her class several times:
- The first one is in the very first episode, its about a human who is eaten alive by the tiger who failed to offer something that satisfied the tiger. The third episode contrasts this with the Galactic Federation mentioning that the enemy aliens sees humans as a lower-class animal.
- The second one is in episode 4, the Moon Rabbit. A tale she told to the class because the existence of aliens is confirmed to be real in-universe as a result of the previous episodes. The Moon Rabbit that Ejima drew resembles Weird who makes his debut in this episode.
- The third one is in episode 7, when Dai was late for school, she was writing a math equation taking all the conclusions she found out about him piece by piece (from his strange behavior from the series so far) by writing his name and problematic life on the chalkboard. Ellen ended up reading what she wrote on the chalkboard.
Ellen: (Dai Daichi + complicated home life) x truancy = delinquent youth.- The forth one is in episode 12 about Tanabata, the tale in which two lovers reunite on the Kasagi bridge every year. Tanabata is also the day in which Seiko is born and she believed she married the wrong person (Mamoru) and hopes that Dai and Nozomi gets a taste of cruel love. This episode visually alludes to Dai and Ellen as being the two lovers.
- Dr. STONE: Ruri, the priestess of Ishigami Village, has the responsibility of remembering and reciting the "Hundred Stories" compiled by their ancestor Byakuya Ishigami more than 3000 years ago. Many of these include useful information about the natural world, but they also include a mashup of Momotarō and Fist of the North Star.
- John H. Watson from Moriarty the Patriot writes Sherlock's adventures under the pen name "Conan Doyle" in the series. Of course, much of the stories are fabrications agreed on with Sherlock, usually to keep the secrets of the mysteries Sherlock is actually pursuing, or to help Sherlock and William manipulate public perception of events in the direction they want.
- Usopp from One Piece is introduced regularly visiting his friend Kaya to tell her various tales he's made up, just to help cheer her up while she recovers from an illness. This, as well as and his habit of running through town yelling about pirates attacking on a daily basis, has given way to his skill at lying. That said, as the adventure proceeds, many of his tales become events he actually witnesses or experiences himself.
- Jun Kudo from Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei, especially a master of the Tear Jerker tales. Of course, we hardly ever get to hear any of his stories...
Art
- Archetypes Storytelling Cards: The Storyteller represents creativity, invention, and awe, and its art shows a woman telling a story to two enraptured children around a campfire.
Comic Books
- DC had a number of these in their horror anthology comics, who would introduce and close out every story. Among them were Cain in House of Mystery, Abel in House of Secrets, Lucien the Librarian in Tales of Ghost Castle, and Death himself in Weird War Tales.
- ElfQuest: A few nights after the Wolfriders' started living with the Sun Folk, Treestump talks about Bearclaw, their former leader and Cutter's father. Rainsong and Moonshade ask him to tell their children how Bearclaw was killed by the monster Madcoil; Cutter says that "he's not a storyteller", but agrees. Leetah, who is eavesdropping, is deeply touched by the terrible things Cutter and his tribe went through, shaking her preconceptions of him.
- Grimm Fairy Tales: Sela Mathers is a deconstruction of this archetype trying to teach An Aesop to her readers.
- Sela starts the series as a teacher using her magic book to teach lessons to people to make the right choice by reading them dark fairytales showing the gruesome fate that awaits them if they continue down their destructive path. At first, things were good, and the people who read Sela's stories made the right choice and better their lives. But eventually, Sela meets people who ignore her advice; they eventually wreck their lives, showing that despite giving good advice and showing the consequences of continuing their bad behavior, there would be people who would ignore good advice and continue their actions. Some issues show that some things are too complicated for Sela and that reading her stories couldn't help the person she's trying to help.
- In the 'Goldie Locks and the Three Bears' story, the woman that was reading the book was trying to murder an older man that she married for money; when she read the book and tried to stop the murder, it was too late, and she was killed with Sela noteing that it was too late for that woman to make things right for her.
- The 'Bluebeard' story had Sela read a story to a woman who suspected her husband was having an affair; the story made the woman afraid her husband was going to kill her, so she stabbed her husband. However, to the women's horror, he was actually planning a surprise party for her and it's revealed that the woman was supposed to read the last page of the book that would've told her that the danger she thought she was in from her husband was just her paranoid fears.
- The 'Beauty and the Beast' story shows Sela reading her stories to a couple in a toxic and abusive relationship. Sela's story convinces the woman to break up with her boyfriend, but the boyfriend, who was revealed to come from an abusive home, decides to kill himself, with Sela noting that he was supposed to do the right thing and wonders why she should care.
- Eventually, Sela herself snaps because of all the people who destroyed their lives despite the advice she tried to give them and starts using the book to kill people that she believes deserve it. Sela only stopped after the person who gave her the book stepped in, and Sela was reminded of the time she read 'The Juniper Tree' to a woman who did the right thing but still lost her daughter anyway. Sela then accepted that despite how hard she tries, she will still lose people who will not take her advice, and she should focus on the people she can save instead.
- Sela starts the series as a teacher using her magic book to teach lessons to people to make the right choice by reading them dark fairytales showing the gruesome fate that awaits them if they continue down their destructive path. At first, things were good, and the people who read Sela's stories made the right choice and better their lives. But eventually, Sela meets people who ignore her advice; they eventually wreck their lives, showing that despite giving good advice and showing the consequences of continuing their bad behavior, there would be people who would ignore good advice and continue their actions. Some issues show that some things are too complicated for Sela and that reading her stories couldn't help the person she's trying to help.
- Green Lantern: Lyssa Drak of the Sinestro Corps loves to tell stories of her fellow corpsmen, as she is the keeper of the Book of Parallax.
- Little Lulu: Lulu frequently entertains Alvin (and some of her other friends, occasionally) by telling stories where the protagonist is a poor girl that looks like her, with Witch Hazel and Little Itch as the antagonists.
- The Sandman (1989): The importance of storytellers to the world is greatly shown along the series (Neil Gaiman himself is one):
- In Tale In the Sand, an old man brings a teenager to an Afrikan desert to tell him the story of Nada, their ancestor, as part of the rite of passage that will turn the boy officially into a man for their tribe.
- In the special Sandman Arabian Nights, a storyteller tells a boy about a fantastic, idealistic Bagdah that is completely different from the real city, which is partially destroyed by the Gulf War. He tells about how the calif Harum-al-Rashid feared that, one day, his city would wither away, so he asked Sandman to preserve it as it was then. The storyteller then dismisses the kid, telling him to return the next day - if he'll have more coins. The boy, on his turn, leaves daydreaming about the wonders he just heard and forgets temporarily his empty stomach and his miserable life.
- In A Tale of a Thousand Cats, an old cat tells another one how she was disillusioned with her humans after they drowned her kittens, her journey to meet the Sandman, and how he (reluctantly) told her that cats once were superior to humans and that changed after a man told his companions to dreams that they were big and powerful. She tells them that, if a thousand cats will dream they prey on humans as they did in the old days, that will become true again, but only a little kitten takes her seriously.
- Star Wars Tales #19 had a story appropriately called "Storyteller". Far in the distant future, two young boys named Remoh and Otalp find the battered body of C-3PO. The droid entertains them with the tale of a hero named Luke Skywalker, who redeemed a darkened soul (Darth Vader) and freed the galaxy from the ultimate evil (Emperor Palpatine). Raiders come, destroy C-3PO, and murder Otalp. Remoh finds Luke Skywalker's lightsaber inside C-3PO's remains. Greatly inspired by the droid's tale, Remoh vows to free his people from the tyrants who rule them, declaring, "There is hope."
- X-Men:
- In the issue "Kitty's Fairy Tale", Kitty makes up a bedtime story for young Illyana Rasputin, casting herself as the heroine and other members of the X-Men as characters. Notably, Kitty cast Cyclops as a prince and Jean Grey as a princess cursed by the evil Phoenix and gave the Scott and Jean in her story the Happy Ending their counterparts were denied.
- A teenager Illyana returns the favor much later, telling a sci-fi story where the dragon Lockheed "adopts" Kitty in his space gang after the White Queen killed her parents, and how she got over her pain and found justice. Her story not only helps Kitty to cope with her recent trauma of having been brainwashed by Ogum but shows Ororo (portrayed in Illyana's story as a depressed space pilot) that she is still herself, in spite of having lost her powers.
Fan Works
- In On the Origin of Duffers, the eccentric magician Coriakin is noted to be an exceptionally gifted storyteller.
- Oogway's Little Owl: Taylor, somewhat unintentionally, becomes a very talented one of these upon entering the Kung Fu Panda world, and recounting stories from Earth Bet that no one had ever heard before, like The Princess Bride, The Beauty And The Beast, and (Po's favorite), Star Wars. Perhaps the crowning moment of this is when she recounts A Bug's Life to a city of oppressed insects, who use the lesson to rise up against the mice who'd been extorting them.
- As in canon, Varric Tethras is this in Skyhold Academy Yearbook. He writes a few stories as part of the series, including a rewrite of The Princess Bride with his colleagues in the various roles, and is also the school's writing teacher — meaning that he's teaching his students how to become this as well.
- In Muggle Fairy Tales are Mad!
, Hermione essentially becomes this; while she, Harry and Ron are hunting for horcruxes, reflecting on how she mentioned muggle fairly tales when initially presented with The Tales of Beedle the Bard, Hermione ends up telling various muggle fairy tales to Ron and Harry (who obviously never heard such tales with the Dursleys), with Ron in particular commenting on how the magic in these tales compares to actual magic.
- The title character of Songs Uncle Sings is an Old Soldier who often tells tales and sings songs about his days as a warrior.
- Marblehead from Pacific: World War II U.S. Navy Shipgirls does this as her favorite pastime alongside telling bad jokes and puns.
- Telling Tales revolves around a traveling storyteller coming to Ponyville and exchanging ponified versions of famous folk tales ("The Mare's Choice", for example, borrows from the Wife of Bath's tale in The Canterbury Tales and the legends of King Arthur).
- The Unbroken King: Ilira Torest, an Imperial Remembrancer who is the very first to be (forcibly) assigned to the Mist Wardens, becoming the personal chronicler of Artorias himself. Her poetic and emotive writing style lends itself well to the honour-bound culture of the Mist Wardens, and the resulting chronicles of chivalry, heroism and duty turn out to be a massive hit in the Imperium and more importantly wind up single-handedly redeeming the image of the Mist Wardens, reversing the impact of Horus' Malicious Slander.
Fairy Tales
- In The Black Thief and the Knight of the Glen, the thief saves the lives of his companions by claiming to have been in more danger than they were, and the knight gives him their lives, one by one, to get the stories. The last story recounts how he saved the life of a baby, and the knight's old nursemaid assures him that it's true and he was the baby.
- "Conal Yellowclaw" (link) has the same plot, though he is the father of the men he's saving.
Films — Animated
- The Breadwinner has Parvana's father, Nurallah, who uses his storytelling to teach her history. When he is taken to prison, Parvana takes up the mantle and tells a Story Within a Story to provide some much-needed escapism and keep everyone's spirits, especially her own, up.
- Brother Bear opens with an Inuit clan gathering around a fire as an elderly Denahi tells them the story of his brother Kenai.
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney): Clopin makes a living by telling stories with his puppets, and opens the film by telling how Quasimodo was “adopted” by the judge Claude Frollo, becoming the bell-ringer of Notre Dame. He announces it as the tale of “a man and a monster”, but, as the story develops, it becomes clear the real monster is Frollo, not Quasimodo.
- Kubo and the Two Strings: Kubo makes a living as a storyteller, enhancing his tales by using his magical shamisen to act the stories out with animated origami figures.
- Moana: Gramma Tala opens the film telling the children the tale of Maui and the Heart of Te Fiti with the help of drawings.
- Song of the Sea has the Great Seanchaí, whose name literally means "storyteller" in Irish, and he's the keeper of all stories related to the fairies of Ireland. Each of his incredibly long hairs contains a story, as he demonstrates when showing Ben a hair that has the story of Mac Lir being turned to stone.
- In Tangled, Flynn offhandedly mentions that he used to read to the younger children in the orphanage. The film also opens and closes with narration in the form of Flynn telling the tale of how he and Rapunzel met.
Films — Live-Action
- 100 Nights of Hero: Hero turns out to be one, who collects stories, telling Cherry and Manfred a story over 100 nights.
- The titular Darby O'Gill in Darby O'Gill and the Little People: he goes to the pub and tells tales of his dealings with Brian, King of the Leprechauns...all of them true.
- Eternals: Sprite uses her illusion powers to tell humans stories of the Eternals' battles against the Deviants, which in turn bled into ancient mythology.
- In Hercules (2014), Iolaus' main role in the group is to spread tales of Hercules' great deeds, though he greatly exaggerates to make Hercules seem like an even bigger badass than he already is. For example, after Hercules defeated a gang of bandits who wear serpent masks, Iolus claimed he defeated a many-headed serpent called the Hydra.
- The Framing Device of Sacha Guitry's Napoléon is Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (better known as simply Talleyrand) telling the whole story of Napoléon Bonaparte to two friends in 1821 right after learning of the former emperor's death. Talleyrand is played by Guitry himself.
- Peter Pan (2003): This is one of the characteristics that makes Wendy attractive to Peter, and she is often shown telling stories to the younger children at various points in the film. The entire film is another story she's telling, possibly to her own children.
- The Grandfather character in The Princess Bride tells the film's story to his sick grandson which is set up as a Framing Device.
- C-3PO, relating the heroes' story to the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi, having come a long way from his comment way back in A New Hope.
Threepio: I'm not much more than an interpreter, and not very good at telling stories. Well, not very good at making them interesting, anyways.
- Wonder Woman: Etta Candy (Lucy Davis) fondly tells stories to the audience about the characters in Wonder Woman in a few short sketches that accompanied the film's home video release, complete with some classical music, a scrapbook, and a fireplace.
Literature
- Scheherazade serves as the Framing Device of Arabian Nights. In the story she is wed to the murderous King Shahryar. Each night she tells Shahryar a story but ends it on a cliffhanger, promising to tell the ending tomorrow. King Shahryar is so enraptured by these stories that he delays her execution, after which the cycle repeats.
- Orrec Caspro in Annals of the Western Shore. He develops the talent in the first book, Gifts, by making up extra "chapters" of his mother's many stories and epic poems. By Voices, he's renowned as a "maker" across the land and his storytelling figures heavily into the Ansul-Ald conflict. In Powers, he becomes a professor at Urdile's university, and his poem "Liberty" inspires many of the other slaves and runaways that Gav meets.
- Aunt Dimity: Lori's mother Beth and Dimity herself provide the tales that are to be published in Aunt Dimity's Death. Lori herself has to recount some of them to establish her identity for Dimity's executor, Willis Sr.
- The Belgariad: Belgarath the Sorcerer often plays the traveling storyteller when he's Walking the Earth. Since he has thousands of years of practice and was present for many of the events the stories are based on, he's very good. In fact, he's a little too good, which can sometimes backfire. His loving embellishments of how Garion and Zakath fought off a dragon to bring his captive audience to groans of despair and tears of joy, leave their companions horrified by the danger and recklessness thus described. Once in private, the intrepid trio find themselves held captive by the audience as they receive a triple tongue-lashing from Polgara, Ce'Nedra and Cyradis.
His stories were filled with sounds that made them come alive, and through the sounds and the words with which he wove the tales, sight and smell and the very feel of strange times and places seemed also to come to life for his spellbound listeners. All of this wonder he gave freely in exchange for a few meals, a few tankards of ale, and a warm spot in the hay barn in which to sleep.
- The title character of The Book Thief finds she can calm people down by reading aloud to them during an air raid in World War II Dresden.
- The Calf of the November Cloud: Konyek's old grandmother, who is also the tribe's matriarch, knows plenty legends about the birth of the Masai, myths about the origin of the world, tales about old heroes and ancient warriors...and is very fond of telling them to her tribe's kids, who are constantly asking her to tell them new stories or retell their favorite tales.
- The Canterbury Tales: A diverse group of travellers tell each other stories to pass the time on their journey.
- "The Callistan Menace": Stanley expects all of the crew to be able to tell him exciting stories about their adventures in the Solar System, but it's Mac Steeden that really enjoys stringing a tale together. He's acknowledged to have the best because he used to be crew for the legendary Captain Peewee Wilson.
- The Chronicles of Prydain: Fflewddur Fflam is the group's bard and who constantly tells tales about their world and its dangers.
- The Cosmere: The Inexplicably Awesome recurring character Hoid is a storyteller in many of his appearances, aided by his millennia of personal experience and his illusion magic. It's most notable in Warbreaker and The Stormlight Archive, where he uses his stories to nudge several major characters in the right direction.
"[The story] means what you want it to mean. The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon."
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Albert Sandy's defining character trait is to tell Greg and the other students buzzworthy stories, usually about people performing supernatural feats.
- In the Dragaera novels, this trope is associated not only with minstrels but physicians and coachmen as well. For physicians, it's a way to distract the patient's attention from the discomfort that medical treatment often entails; for coachmen, it's how they entertain stable workers whom their professional dignity forbids them from laboring alongside.
- A series by Elizabeth Vaughan has Ezren Silvertongue, a storyteller by trade. In Dagger-Star, he was Made a Slave, and his cruel master cut off his tongue specifically because he was a storyteller, but the heroes save him and restore his tongue with a healing spell. A lot of Ezren's arcs involve him being insecure about storytelling being about his only talent as he is short, scrawny, and no warrior, unlike pretty much every other character. To his surprise, Bethral falls for him, partly because he is an amazing storyteller. In Destiny's Star, Ezren and Bethral live among the People of the Plains. Ezren at first fears that he will not be accepted, but discovers that the People of the Plains hold singers and storytellers in high regard.
- In Enchanted, Sunday goes into the forest to read stories to the talking frog. It helps him remember having been human.
- Eva Luna: The eponymous protagonist's talent for stories (inherited from her Missing Mom Consuelo) gets her out of poverty, solitude, and even death. It also allows her to meet her great love Rolf, the local Intrepid Reporter.
- Fangbone! Third Grade Barbarian: Fangbone often tells stories from Skullbanian barbarian culture to Bill when he wants to make a point. Many of these involve a Folk Hero named Stoneback the Solid, whom Fangbone attributes with creating a lot of natural phenomenon. The Animated Adaptation Fangbone! retains this element.
- The Fangs of K'aath: Sandhri begins the novel as a storyteller on the streets of an Arabian city. It doesn't bring in much money, but she doesn't mind. This establishes her character as intelligent and sympathetic.
- The Heritage of Shannara: In The Scions of Shannara, Par and Coll Ohmsford were acting as storytellers while trying to avoid capture.
- In The Hobbit, this is one of the things Bilbo remembers about Gandalf in the opening.
Not the fellow who used to tell such wonderful tales at parties, about dragons and goblins and giants and the rescue of princesses and the unexpected luck of widows' sons?
- The Minstrel in The Last Hero, who is dragged along by the Silver Horde to chronicle their last great act of heroism. It is revealed at the end that he is only The Minstrel — no name other than that — and his entire purpose is to be the one that tells the tale. Despite his battered appearance by the end of it all, he seems to be a pretty good sport about the whole thing. Or else he has been driven insane by the ordeal and forgotten whatever name he had before.
- Sara Crewe in A Little Princess, as well as all the adaptations thereof. Especially notable in the Alfonso Cuaron film and in the anime, where her narratives are shown in detail, and become an important plot point.
- Magehunter, which is set in a Middle-Eastern-inspired world, has a storyteller named Al-Haddar as a Scheherazade stand-in. Notably, after you're done with a feast, Al-Haddar then narrates an important story to you, which serves as a Metafiction to your adventure.
- A Necklace of Fallen Stars: Kaela is a Rebellious Princess with a gift for telling tales. She jokes that it started with the wild excuses she gave to her father to explain why she was late for dinner.
- Bastian from The Neverending Story enjoyed regaling a younger girl with his stories that he made up. When in Fantastica, this ability is vital to him as he is the only person, being human, who can create stories. Eventually creates a library containing all of his stories with a story of his.
- The New Jedi Order: In Remnant, this is the role of the Shamed One I'pan, who both tells stories to entertain his fellow outcasts and also serves as a priest of the as-yet-inchoate Jedi Heresy, retelling the tales that will form the basis of the religion. Even Nom Anor, a spy, Manipulative Bastard, and all-around cynic, can't help but be impressed at how well I'pan works a crowd. Although I'pan is killed, he inspires Nom Anor to create the guise of Yu'shaa, the Prohpet, a charismatic figure who can spread the heresy further and wider than ever before.
- Razorland Trilogy: Morrow serves as the storyteller for Company D. Eventually, he writes his stories down.
- "Someday": The little computer Bard is designed to generate an infinite number of stories by combining all different fairytale elements.
- In A Song of Ice and Fire, Old Nan is both the children's caretaker and the storyteller of Winterfell. She's particularly fond of telling scary stories about the Others.
- Spiral Arm: In The January Dancer, the harper sought out the scarred man to get him to tell her his stories, so she could write songs about them.
- To Shape a Dragon's Breath: The position of Professor Ibarra as the lore teacher—erelore, folklore, and wordlore—is to impart the lore of North Marksland and the "civilized" world to the various students, which includes literature, history, and folklore intertwined from the cultures he teaches from. Granted, Anequs is annoyed at the fact that the history being taught starts in 1574 when the Norsemen arrived—Indigenous North Markesland people have been there much longer and have history long before then. New student Jadi Wozniakowa is also unfamiliar with several aspects, as she's Zhidi (Jewish) and thus not enveloped in the Norsemen/Anglish faith stories.
- In Warrior Cats, Purdy is known for his love of telling stories — though whether cats willingly listen is up for debate. He's even been known to not stop after realizing that his audience has fallen asleep.
- Watership Down :
- Dandelion. Among the main group, he told most of the stories of "the prince of a thousand enemies".
- Bluebell gets to tell one, as well. He's also telling a story to keep some of the other rabbits calm during the climactic scene.
- Gleemen in The Wheel of Time tell stories, along with playing music, performing juggling or tumbling, and providing a general mixed bag of entertainment. Thom Merrilin is one of the most accomplished among them, and prides himself that he can regale a story in either "plain chant", i.e. normal speech, or the more fanciful "high chant". The fact that he was once a court bard has a lot to do with his particular expertise.
Live-Action TV
- Adventures in Wonderland: The Caterpillar plays this role Once per Episode. One of the other characters will travel to his glade to talk, and he'll share a story about the situation they're facing via a magical book (which produces segments done in Claymation).
- The opening of Amazing Stories (1985) starts with an old man telling stories for a group of cavemen around a fire; after a series of fantastic images, the storyteller’s face shows up on TV as a family watches. That establishes the essence of the series and also shows how old the art of telling stories is.
- In Are You Afraid of the Dark?, a group of teenagers called themselves as "The Midnight Society" reunites at a campfire in the woods to tell stories once a week.
- Stella from Barney & Friends tells stories from all over the world.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Andrew, in Seasons 7 and 8, with him endeavoring to educate the Slayer Potentials. Played for Laughs due to him being a bit of a Cloudcuckoolander at best and suffering the occasional mistake in regards to the show's continuity.
- Fraggle Rock has the Storyteller, who often tells Fraggle legends to the others.
- Game of Thrones: This is part of Old Nan's job. She has many stories about many situations.
- NUMB3RS: Interestingly enough, Charlie Eppes, who constructs entertaining parables to illustrate math.
- Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger: Played for Drama. Jeramie Brasieri is an Older Than They Look soothsayer that's responsible for most of the mythology surrounding the culture of Tikyu, the show even revealing him to be the one narrating the recaps and episode previews. He's been a storyteller for so long however that it's the only way he feels he can communicate and his insistence on making most exchanges of information riddle-filled, subtext-laden yarns causes multiple misunderstandings and pits many of the kings against him until he finally gives in and just says what he wants to say. Even the stories he's created cause problems: His documentation of the war between humans and the Bug Naraku was so heavily skewed in humanity's favor that it outright villainized the insectoid race and convinced its king to actually become the very human-hating villain he and his species were depicted as.
- The Storyteller (unsurprisingly) features one. He's credited just as "The storyteller", and his storytelling is the Framing Device for each episode. He's also the protagonist of one story.
- French actor François Chaumette (who dubbed Darth Vader in A New Hope) appeared in the Contes à trembler debout ("Tales to shiver standing up") skits of the early 1980s show Les Visiteurs du mercredi as a storyteller of frightening tales.
- Gabrielle in Xena: Warrior Princess had a fantastic flair for storytelling before she became a full-fledged Action Girl and even taught Homer a thing or two.
Music
- Tuomas Holopainen (who wrote the song) summarized the lyrics to "Storytime" thus [part of a larger text]: "The meaning of our very existence is created though stories, tales and imagination. They are at the very core of humanity."
- Paul McCartney's lyrics (especially compared to other Beatles') are notable for often telling stories rather than pondering about abstract subjects. He's also a master storyteller during interviews. His age and career certainly help.
Mythology & Religion
- Western African mythology gives us Anansi the Spider, who, in addition to being a Trickster God, is also known as the King of All Stories. According to legend, Onyame the Sky God (or Tiger, depending on the version you're reading) held all of the world's stories in a golden box, refusing to share them with the Earth. When Anansi traveled to Onyame to ask for the box, the deity challenged him with several impossible tasks as his price. Anansi completed the tasks and Nyame, true to his word, gave over the box; the spider immediately opened it and scattered the stories to the winds, allowing everyone to enjoy them.
- Older Than Feudalism: In The Bible, Jesus was known for illustrating religious points with parables.
- In Norse Mythology, Odin has charge over riddles and poetry and runes and the like.
Radio
- The "Storyteller" sketches at the end of each episode of John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme. Word of God is that Finnemore's Storyteller started out as a pastiche of an M. R. James ghost story narrator, and specifically Derek Jacobi's audiobook version, before widening out to include "a bit John Buchan, a bit H. G. Wells, and a bit R.L. Stevenson — in fact any of those writers between about 1885 and 1939 who wrote stories in which chaps who only ever refer to one another by their surnames are reluctantly persuaded by other chaps at the club to tell tall stories".
Tabletop Games
- In Deadlands, after defeating a major evil, the characters can use the Persuasion skill to tell people the story of their deeds to try to reduce the level of fear among the local populace. This is important because fear strengthens the monsters and physically transforms the land to their benefit, and the Big Bads' ultimate plan is to spread enough fear to allow them to manifest in the human world. Characters can take an Edge (i.e. ability) called Tale Teller that makes them especially good at this.
- Magic: The Gathering: Tamiyo and her son Nashi are practitioners of story magic. They collect and archive tales, drawing on the narratives contained within to cast spells. An especially prized scroll Tamiyo kept on her person was her own life story, which allowed her to persist as a spirit after death.
- In Werewolf: The Apocalypse:
- Through singing and storytelling, Galliards preserve legends from Garou Nation history.
- Illyara, one of the six surviving Zmei (Wyrm dragons) collects stories of her siblings' achievements and shares them with anyone who asks.
Theatre
- The opening number of the musical Once Upon a Mattress is sung by the Minstrel, who tells the story of the Princess and the Pea and explains the true story of the event to his audience.
- In the Backstory of Othello, this is how Othello won Desdemona.
Her father loved me, oft invited me,
Still questioned me the story of my life
From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,
That I have passed.
I ran it through, even from my boyish days,
To th' very moment that he bade me tell it,
Wherein I spoke of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field,
Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' th' imminent deadly breach,
Of being taken by the insolent foe
And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence
And portance in my traveler's history. - Wendy in Peter Pan. The fact that she knows "lots of stories" is what makes Peter take her to Never Land in the first place since the Lost Boys don't know any stories. In early drafts of the script, even the Indians listen in.
Theme Parks
- In 2025, Disneyland Paris released a short about the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride's lore with Maïk Darah as storyteller.
Video Games
- The homeless drunk, Idiot Doom Spiral, from Disco Elysium enjoys telling you about his own personal journey from being a successful tech-billionaire to a drunken bum living on the street as well as various Urban Legends, provided you are willing to supply him with booze.
- Leliana in Dragon Age: Origins. Notably, the DLC Leliana's Song is framed somewhat as her telling the story of how she split from Marjolaine. One of her companions, Sketch, makes a cameo in the sequel and is apparently being chased as a result of the tale.
Take my advice friend: stay away from storytellers. Never know what they'll say …
- Varric in Dragon Age II. The Framing Device of the whole game is Cassandra questioning him on the protagonist's time in Kirkwall, and his stories are half the reason the PC becomes a Memetic Badass even before the climax.
Merrill: (teasing Varric) No shit, there I was-
- Storytelling is one of the five available performance arts in Dwarf Fortress (the other four being music, poetry, dance, and sermons). In Fortress mode, dwarves might gather at your tavern to tell each other stories, while in Adventurer mode, storytelling can be used to spread word about your character's great deeds (though this is more time-consuming than simply bringing it up during conversation). Stories are always based on in-universe historical events, and the game only describes the basic premise of a story while leaving the details to the player's imagination.
You begin the story of the settling of the dwarf Kel Tradeoaks in Blossombud in the late autumn of 106.
- In The Elder Scrolls: Legends, all of the story mode tales are framed as a man named Kellen telling stories to his companions.
- God of War (PS4): Mimir('s head) serves this purpose, as well as Mr. Exposition; while Kratos and Atreus make their way through Midgard and the various realms, Mimir tells them stories from Norse Mythology to flesh out the world for them and the players alike, most of which he personally witnessed. Of course, anyone familiar with Norse mythology will quickly realise that these versions aren't quite the ones written down in the prose edda...
- Psychonauts: Vernon claims on his Character Blog to be descended from storytellers all the way from caveman times, and he is a limitless warehouse of incredibly long and boring stories.
- Roots of Pacha:
- Tetih, one of the village elders, tells folktales about the nature goddess Pacha and the totem animals to the younger generation. You can listen to her stories during festivals, and the village eventually builds a storytelling theater for her with enough Prosperity.
- According to Nari, her daughter Era is a storyteller like the latter's father Zelk, who got it from his maternal aunt Tetih. However, Era's not as confident in telling stories like her dad, but you can help her with it in her third Hangout Event. On the other hand, Tetih thinks Zelk exaggerates his tales, and as Nari can attest, he's more interested in telling a good story than being accurate. Indeed, most of Zelk's stories are true, and his tale about his very first adventure with his cousin Frala when they were kids is one of the few stories that's confirmed to be true.
- Shining Resonance: Kirika enthusiastically takes the opportunity to regale Yuma with stories of the Shining Dragon's heroism; unfortunately, she goes into more detail than the former's attention span can handle.
- Six Ages: Ekarna, goddess of trade and communication, is so good at telling stories that she can trade the experience for actual tangible items. She hails from a pre-medieval culture where most people are illiterate, so they carry their histories on metal "honor belts" and painstakingly woven story tents (where all the children of a clan are taught about their ancestors).
"Rams slew us," said the ghosts. "So we like nothing better than a tale in which they are slain. We will give you the bones you seek."
- Tavern Talk: Archie is good at telling stories to entertain his companions during quests.
- Touhou Project: Kaguya Houraisan, the lunar princess, is a proficient storyteller that entertains people during festivals.
- World of Warcraft: Lorewalker Cho acts at first as a guide for the player in Pandaria's Jade Forest and thereafter tells the player stories of such figures as King Varian Wrynn and Vol'jin of the Darkspear in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. He also serves as the narrator for a short animated series by Blizzard, The Burdens of Shaohao.
- Xenogears features this as its second disc due to budget and production problems - the game turning into mostly Visual Novel, with the story of the in-game events being told from the point of view of the characters sitting around in a chair discussing the events happening around/involving them.
Web Animation
- The titular character in Fallout Lore: The Storyteller is of course this, centering around adventures of a Powered Armor-clad wanderer, who has seemingly been spending decades traveling the wastes looking for stories and information to share, and is/was a member of the Brotherhood of Steel, but that's essentially all we know about him. note
Webcomics
- In Cucumber Quest, Princess Nautilus is delighted that she gets to tell Cucumber the stories.
- Kalare from Gifts of Wandering Ice is a storyteller scientist who knows that her magical legends are not true but believes them to be important for developing creative types of thinking in her students.
- Girl Genius:
- Theopholous Dumedd makes up fantastic tales for the younger students that seem to end up including a whole bunch of accidental truths.
- The Author Avatar for Phil Foglio shows up in the comic. In fact, the first-ever page is him telling a story (presumably the Girl Genius story) to some kids. He shows up a couple times again in the comic, notably to meet Klaus in the hospital.
- Koark from Order of Tales. The eponymous Order is devoted to telling and preserving tales; Koark is the last of their kind.
- Fuschia in Sinfest. When she leaves Hell, the damned notice that storytime comes and no story has.
Western Animation
- In The Brothers Grunt, the Poobah shares stories of the brothers' adventures and Grunt legends with the audience.
- From Disney Fairies: Spinner in the books and Lyria in the movies are Story-Teller talent fairies.
- Gerald from Hey Arnold! tells a lot of Urban Legends. In one episode, Curly gets mad because he wants to tell the story of "The Ghost Bride" but everyone else won't let him since it's Gerald's job.
- He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983): The episode "Beauty and the Beast" opens with an old storyteller telling to a group of children the eponymous tale. Teela comments that she loved it when she was a child, but Orko says it is only fiction. The tale becomes real when both are kidnapped by Skeletor, who sends them to a king that Evil-lyn turned into a monster years ago; the poor man only agrees to help because otherwise Skeletor will turn his people into monsters, too. Of course, Teela encourages the king to stand up against the villains; although he fails, she thanks him with a kiss that breaks the spell. At the end of the episode, Orko apologizes to the storyteller, saying that Beauty and the Beast was much more than a story.
- Cheerilee in My Little Pony (G3). The intro even spells it out for us: "I hope we hear a story from Cheerilee!"
- Molly of Denali: Grandpa Nat loves telling stories to Molly, such as the raven who stole the sun.
- The The New Batman Adventures Episode Legends of the Dark Knight features three young Storytellers each recounting their own vision of Batman that homage different Comic Book interpretations of the character.
- In Peter and the Magic Egg, Uncle Amos tells the story to the talking animals, even though they were there and should know more about it than Amos.
- Sydney from Ready Jet Go!. She loves to tell stories, the most famous example being when she told Jet about the legend of Lone Star in the episode of the same name.
- In Secrets of the Furious Five, Po calms down his first students- a rowdy class of children- by telling them stories about how their heroes exemplified the ideals of kung fu. This works not just because the stories themselves are interesting, but because Po has a friendly, approachable personality and a good idea of what the kids will want to hear about. It's implied that Po was once in their shoes, long ago.
Po: (after narrating Master Viper's backstory) Now, I know what you're all thinking. Where's the kickin' butt?
Children: Yeah! - The Simpsons:
- Abe Simpson is fond of telling stories, although they tend to be rambling and nonsensical. Occasionally his stories are crucial to the plot, as in "The Curse of the Flying Hellfish", and it gets Lampshaded on "Lemon of Troy" when kids spontaneously gather around him when he appears out of nowhere to tell the story of the old lemon tree.
- Homer appears to have inherited his father's gift for stories. Most of the Whole Episode Flashback episodes have him telling the kids stories of when he and Marge were younger.
- The old hobo in "Simpsons Tall Tales", who regales the Simpsons with stories from American folklore.
- Leaders in the early Christian church as depicted by The Storykeepers are known as "storykeepers". They are called that since they share stories of the life of Jesus to converts. Many of whom (like the main character Ben) were able to meet Jesus themselves in person.
- William from A Tale Dark & Grimm. The most clear-cut example of the three ravens. He is a gifted storyteller with a flair for the dramatic, and he's also the one who handles most of the actual narration and the one who keeps the story on track when Dotty goes off on a tangent or Jacob gets reluctant about the topics.
- An episode of X-Men: The Animated Series puts Jubilee in this role, recycling some elements from "Kitty's Fairy Tale". When she and a bunch of non-powered children are trapped in a cave, she cheers them up by telling them stories where she casts herself as an Action Girl, Gambit and Wolverine were her teammates, Professor Xavier was The Mentor, Magneto as the Evil Sorcerer, Cyclops as the Prince, Jean as the Princess...
Real Life
- Storytelling and Oral Tradition in general is historically extremely important in West African culture, to the point that one of the most iconic cultural characters from that area — Anansi — was known as the Keeper of Stories. Griots or djeli were professional traveling storytellers: revered figures in the community whose job was not only to collect stories but to pass down all the history and culture of the places they visited. In older times (before the use of writing became widespread), they were even the official court records.
- Scottish clans will often have an official clan bard. In times past, this could be hereditary or perhaps a close relation of the chief. They would follow close behind the chief in battle to make sure the clan's glorious deeds were recorded. The clan's inglorious deeds were of course treated differently.
- Much of Greek epic poetry was transmitted orally for centuries before being written down and was normally performed by being sung before a crowd. Because they bridge the gap between the Bronze Age Collapse and the return of literacy in Greece during the Iron Age, the earliest poets to whom works are attributed, such as Homer, are Shrouded in Myth.