Contents:

A Storytelling Miscellany
Activities
Articles
  - Articles: story in education
  - Articles: story in healing and health
Background Resources
  - The Fool
Books, Magazines and Recordings
  - Magazines and Newsletters
Children's Literature
Cultural Traditions of Storytelling
Digital Storytelling
Favourite Storytelling Websites
History of Stories and Storytelling
  - Classic Stories - Studies and Projects
Homepages
  - Festivals and Events
  - Organizations
  - Storytellers
How to Tell Stories
Links pages
Special Interests - Applying Storytelling
  - Organizational Storytelling
  - Storytelling and Education
  - Storytelling and Healing
     - Narrative Therapy
Story Art and Illustration
Storytelling FAQ material
Tools and References
Training
  - College Courses
  - Improvisation

A Storytelling Miscellany

• Aaron Shepard's Storytelling Page
     Aaron, a much-published children's author of folktale adaptations offers Tales & Tips on How to Tell a Story, including Gifts of Story - some great traditional tales; An online guide to storytelling; Articles on storytelling; Recommended reading in storytelling, folklore, and mythology - a good selection.

• African Folklore
     Annotated links to African folklore, mythology, and discussion of these.

• American Folktales
     68 tales indexed by title, state, region, characters, historical or ethnic nature, weather-lore or tall tale.

• Anthology - The Spoken World Show
     Monthly internet radio show, with RealAudio performances of storytelling and poetry. Archived performances and artist profile pages.

• Aristotle's Rhetoric
     This ancient book is still revered for its thorough and perceptive examination of the art of persuasion and oral speech making. The complete text is here online, divided into chapters. Each chapter is summarised also, and there's a bibliography for further readiing.

• Classification of Tales
     Brief introduction to the categories of tales that folklorists use, such as Folktale, Fairy Tale, Fable, Legend etc., with reference to contemporary storytellers.

• Creative Campfires and Storytelling
     Lots of resources and advice for scout camp organisers, which could help any outdoor storyteller. Includes tips on storytelling, collections of tales and songs to use, planning tips and much more.

• Creative Minds Mythology page
     Myths, legends and folklore. The site appears to be in limbo at the moment; hopefully it will be resurrected soon - drop me a note if you find it running.

• Dana Snow's The Art of Comedy
     An online book about writing and performing. Over 140 pages explore every aspect, and there is much here that a storyteller can learn from.

• Dramatas
     An interesting resource from youth drama classes, but marred by the website being totally broken. This link takes you to a directory of pages to explore. Some are mere notes or duplications, others are useful discussions, and a fair number are whole lesson plans. Subjects covered: Acting, Script analysis, Role play, Whole class drama, Interpreting and portraying characters through dialogue, Characteristation, Physical and visual comedy, Exploring storytelling, Improvisation, Performance genres, Poetry, Public Speaking, Storymaking, Storytelling, Voicework.

• Eldrbarry's Story Telling Page
     A major resource, by Barry McWilliams. Pages on favorite stories and their background, a Raven resource, profiles of favorite story authors and illustrators, helps on finding, selecting and learning stories; a manual of effective storytelling, links to other sites with help on techniques, online story resources; and tips on Bible stories. Plus over forty tales to read and use.

• Encyclopedia Mythica: Mythology, Folklore, and Legends
     An essential resource. Use it to browse or search the extensive short explanatory articles on a wide variety of subjects, or read many stories. The main categories are: Mythology - Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania, Other mythologies; Folklore of the world, including cryptozoology, general, Arthurian legend, Greek heroic legend, and texts of folktales; Bestiary; Heroes; Image gallery; Genealogy of pantheons and prominent Houses; Features.

• Entertainers Network - online directory
     This mainly UK directory / agency has no storytellers listed yet - which could spell opportunity for you?

• Fairy Tale Resource Page for Teachers and Librarians
     A resource guide for professionals involved in teaching or introducing the world of Fairy Tales to children grades K-6. This is an archive of an old but interesting site - however, the links may not all work now.

• Fairy Tales and Lawyers
     An extraordinary and site examining many aspects of narrative in relation to lawyers, including film, fairy tales, mythology and much more. Lots of links also to film theory and narrative.

• Folk and Fairy Tales
     An astonishing 1200 classic tales, arranged in alphabetical order, culled from many collections such as the 'Colour' Fairy books, English Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends of the Sioux, the Donegal Wonder Book, various fable collections, and others. The texts of these classic books are all online, but this page separates out each tale and mixes them together - awkward in one way but useful in another especially if you know the title of a story you want. Use your browser's Edit - Find facility to search for any keyword that you might want in the title of a story, as a primitive story search. This page is just one at Rick Walton's Online Library, which provides loads of resources for children's books (many by Rick), and includes a very long list of curriculum activities to tie in with certain themes and stories. There's lots more here to explore besides.

• Folklore: An Introduction
     A rudimentary introduction to the whole field, giving some of the main categories studied.

• Hero's Journey - interactive story site
     An environment to explore the classic mythical story structure and to create your own stories. The site is an experimental project developed in 1998 by the Maricopa Center for Learning & Instruction (MCLI) and the South Mountain Community College Storytelling Institute. There is an excellent reference tool that summarises and explains Joseph Campbell's stages in the Hero's Journey structure from mythology, and gives examples of each from various sources. There are also ideas for creative exercises to use yourself or with others in creating or exploring stories. Over 5000 people have posted their own creations.

• How to get the most from your guest storyteller
     Some brief tips to schools when hiring storytellers, from the San Antonio Area Storytellers.

• In Pursuit of the Oral Tradition of Storytelling
     An impassioned plea for storytellers (in the USA) not to get trapped in the copyright mindset, and recognize the oral tradition for what it is. The advertised oraltelling email list seems to be defunct.

• Insights
     Mary Grace Ketner's compilation of quotations about storytelling contains many inspiring words, useful summaries and yes, insights.

• Legends
     A major resource, beautifully designed and presented. It gives introductions, commentary, original sources, illustrations and annotated links for many subjects including: Robin Hood, King Arthur & The Matter of Britain, The Welsh Bards, Tales of Gawain, Guenevere, Percival the Fool, Merlin & the History of Britain, Sir Tristan & La Belle Iseult, Elaine of Astolat, Ballads & Broadsides, True Thomas, Tam Lin & Fair Janet, Pirates & Privateers, Blackbeard, Fairy Tales, Classic Tales, Selchies, Shakespeare's Stories, Beowulf, Sagas & Sea-Kings, Sigurd the Volsung, The Viking Age, Paladins & Princes, Knighthood in Flower, El Cid, Roland, and much more.

• Media UK Internet Directory
     radio, magazines, newspapers and television from England Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland

• MP3.com > Storytelling
     Hundreds of recordings of storytelling, and even a storytelling 'radio station' facility.

• Mudcat Cafe presents The Digital Traditions Folksong Database
     Searchable lyrics of nearly 9000 folk songs, including of course the many ballads/stories. Plus a discussion forum for asking further questions.

• Myth*ing Links
     An adventure of a site, full of treasures, by Kathleen Jenks. Described as An Annotated & Illustrated Collection of Worldwide Links to Mythologies, Fairy Tales & Folklore, Sacred Arts & Sacred Traditions. But this is not a plain collection of links - note the 'Annotated & Illustrated'. There are many beautiful illustrations (making pages slow to download), and a great deal of content - commentary, site reviews, essays. The pages are divided into a wide variety of interesting categories and themes, making them very useful for ideas and research, e.g. the four elements, geographical regions, sacred dance, tricksters, seasonal themes, teachers' reference pages, student research pages etc.

• Mythic Crossroads: Myths and Legends
     Huge and excellent site, with comprehensive links to mythology sites and resources, divided into British, Egyptian, Greek/Roman, Norse and Other links, plus history sites too.

• Myths and Legends
     One of the best resources, Christopher Siren's epic site has detailed annotations of more weblinks than you could ever eat, regularly updated, and divided geographically into cultures. Links are to sites both of and about mythology.

• Nasreddin Hodja
     Erol Beymen's whole site about the popular wise fool. A preface and biography give lots of information. Over seventy short tales are categorised by subject. The graphics page has good high resolution scans of illustrations, but beware the download time for this 2Mb page! The training page has a children's study page of Hodja reading exercises, but beware the Learning Exercises - the java applets crash my browser every time. The bibliography runs to 22 books on the Hodja, and the 36 sites on the weblinks page makes this a great resource for finding out more.

• Nasreddin Hodja's CV
     A biography of this famous Wise Fool, and a linked page of almost 40 short tales about him.

• Norse Mythology
     A thorough guide and source, including detailed discussions of each of the gods, cosmology, source texts and lots more. Very nice, and even includes a site search engine.

• Parables to Policy
     A project in Letcher County, Kentucky, USA. Using Labonte’s storycircle discussion method (see this PDF file for more details) to raise awareness of the needs of their community, people shared their views and experiences.The story circles were recorded on video for the website and also written up. The Team believed it was crucial for any vision of the future to take into account real accounts of the lives of local people. Putting the storycircles on a website gives the people of Letcher County a way of reaching distant policy makers who have power and influence but do not necessarily hear what people experiencing Southern rural poverty are saying. Each 'parable' has a combination of pictures, narrative text, and Real Audio clips, plus a dialogue between policy makers, using the community parable as the context for discussing policy themes and recommendations. The last section is a return to the community for some

• Propaganda techniques - Disinfopedia
     A collaborative project giving lots of information on propaganda, from rhetorical and other techniques, to logical fallacies, to persuasion technology.

• Reviews of The Storytelling FAQ
     Independent in-depth reviews of this very site - and fortunately they're highly complimentary!

• Story-Lovers Greeting Cards
     Lots of stationery decorated with images from early 20th century children's illustrators. Also very useful resources for tellers - free web display of your business card or brochure, collections of information on stories culled from the Storytell listserve, and more.

• Story Arts Online
     Heather Forest's site for teachers, librarians, and students explores the use of storytelling in the classroom to enhance speaking, listening, reading and writing skills. With lesson plans, activities, articles, bibliographies, a library of stories, and a free occasional newsletter.

• Story Connection
     Dianne de Las Casas' site has a wide range of resources. Nearly 20 storytelling activities and games are aimed at children but some would suit adults too. The library lists books, audio, video, magazines and more - though without annotations. There's an activities club for kids, plenty of web-links, and of course details of Dianne's own storytelling performances and workshops.

• StoryCorps
     A USA national oral-history project initiated in 2003. It aims to place small storybooths - small recording studios in public spaces - around the country where anyone can interview friends and family members about their lives with the help of a trained facilitator. At the end of the 40 minute session participants will receive a CD with their story; another copy will go to the StoryCorps archive. Some excerpts will be played on radio. They also rent out or sell StoryKits - light, easy-to-use minidisc recording packages for use at home.

• Storyfest Journeys: Storytelling, Spirituality and Travel
     Holidays to historic places in various countries, to explore the stories.

• Storytalk
      A place for storytellers (and story lovers) to chat, post, review, link, and discuss storytelling.

• Storytell Archive Files
     Direct access to immense and informative resource of voluminous discussion since 1995 of storytelling and related issues, by storytellers worldwide. Unfortunately, the archives are very large chunks of emails, with no search facility within each chunk (and they may not be working at all, as the server is frequently down). However, you can download the plain text files and use your browser or wordprocessor's Edit-Find facility to search for keywords. Storytell is the prime email discussion list for storytelling, with around 600 members.

• Storytell Archives - search
     Immense and informative resource of several years voluminous discussion of storytelling and related issues, by storytellers worldwide. Unfortunately, this keyword search facility is very basic, returning very large chunks of emails. May not be working at all, as the server is frequently down.

• Storyteller Net
     Well-established storytelling portal site, offering lots of great services, including free web pages for storytellers, articles, a directory of tellers, and regularly updated streaming audio of full stories.

• Storytelling in the News - Google
     This searches Google's current news headlines, gathered from all the news media, for mention of storytelling. Check out the hundreds of storytelling news stories, or modify and narrow the search to your own ends.

• Storytelling Resources Centre
     Leslie Melville, storyteller/magician, offers a news page with events and personal diary, and several pages on themes such as urban legends, pirate tales, folktales, and magic stories, with web-links.

• Storytelling Store
     In Jonesborough, Tennessee, USA. Has books, tapes/CDs, videos and gifts. All are exclusively American, and by the better known tellers. But the store does accept online ordering and payment. International postage charges are not given.

• Storytelling, etc.
     An unusual site of musings and more, by Chris Cavanagh of Ontario, Canada. It includes a few tales and riddles, an eclectic bibliography for those interested in the whole nature of stories and telling.

• Storytelling: the Art of Knowledge
     This exhibition, a project of the interns in the Aboriginal Training Programme in Museum Practices of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, illuminates the diversity of, and importance of sharing, narratives in six Native communities: Algonquin, Inuit, Mi'kmaq, Métis-Cree, Nisga'a and Abenaki. The site gives cultural history around storytelling, and pictures of relevant museum exhibits.

• Telling Tales
     An eclectic site for storytelling, aiming to build resources especially for kids, by Bob Wilkins a UK teller. There are projects and ideas for children to create their own stories, teacher tips for storytelling activities,. a free Directory of Storytellers (are you listed yet?) and Tapes, a large collection of stories - mainly by children, with a few in streaming audio, and some available books linked to Amazon.

• The Art of Storytelling - featuring American Folktales
     Teachers and children from New Jersey bring you: Stories to tell, information and tips for all ages, and how to have a storytelling festival.

• The Guide to Unbiological Species
     A long dead site, even though there are lots of sites still trying to link to it, but here's the only source of the material, still in the Internet Archive. It's a bestiary of mythical animals, with pictures of some (though I couldn't get any to load). There's also some information on mediaeval bestiaries.

• The Story of Brother Blue
     The extraordinary storyteller Brother Blue. He started out many years ago by telling stories in the street, accosting passers by and enthusing tales at them. He's a national phenomenon and institution in the USA. This page has his inspiring life story, and streaming audio and video of him - not to be missed.

• The Storytelling Web Ring
     A network of hundreds of sites relevant to storytelling to browse and explore. If your website is of interest to storytellers, join!

• Turkish Folklore
     A very brief survey of Turkish folk heroes, folk dance, music and arts. Useful background for Turkish tales.

• Windsor Castle Online: wisdom, wit and humour
     Absolutely extraordinary site, and nothing to do with the real Windsor Castle, as far as I can tell. Not that I can tell what the site is about at all! But it's chock-full of wonderful tales (esp. Scandinavian), insights, essays, folklore, philosophy, quotations and more. And the navigation is mind-boggling - there seem to be multiple ways of exploring, so I suggest clicking on everything. This page is a site-map, which at least gives a partial idea of the scope.

• World News - storytelling
     This link searches for mentions of 'storytelling' in a wide variety of world media. Many mentions of the word won't actually refer to the art of live storytelling, but you can browse any promising headlines or refine your search terms.
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Activities

• Activities to Accompany Study of Appalachian Folktales and Dramas
     An extensive list of games and exercises for kids. Part of a study guide with lots of resources, including Guidelines for Teaching with Folk Tales.

• African Odyssey --Something Funny Happened When...
     This is a place for sharing stories between students in African countries and students around the world. Follow the steps to develop an interesting and creatively presented story. Once submitted, it will published on the Web, available for students anywhere in the world to see and respond to. There's a teacher's guide to help. Part of an educational project on Africa at the Kennedy Center.

• Brothers Grimm--Literature/Animals lesson plan (grades K-5)
     A thorough storytelling activity lesson plan for teachers, including art and discussion.

• Curriculum Suggestions for Rick's Books
     Rick Walton, children's author, gives a long list of activities and resources tying in with tales in his books (many could be used with tales from elsewhere on the same themes). A generous resource, and the rest of the site has many treasures including the texts of 1200 classic folk and fairytales.

• Games and Workshops Manual
     A large collection of games and ideas suitable for youth groups, school classes, festivals, adult groups etc. compiled by Paul "Baby Fish" Mullan. Sections include Introductory Games, Icebreakers, Energisers, Group Building Games, Other Games, Prejudice Workshops, Identity Workshops. For instance the Group Building section has a couple of storytelling games, others include physical, or trust games. Good for fun or to bond a group.

• Language Arts Lesson Plans
     A large number of activities for very young children, some including storytelling, and others could be incorporated into story sessions. Ideas for rhyming, sentence structure, tongue twisters.

• Lesson Plan on Myth, Folktales, and Legends
     Comparing and contrasting characteristics of these three types of tales. Includes definitions, a tale, and some activities.

• Lesson Plan on storytelling
     From the New York Times, a lesson plan around Irish lore. Based on a news story that hit international headlines, about the conflict between the old and new worlds: still-strong Irish taboos about fairies preventing modern road-building. Famous Irish storyteller and expert on fairy lore Eddie Lenihan was reluctantly at the heart of it, as this fascinating article describes. (The events after this article was written became even more extraordinary, with labourer walk-outs and deaths, though I don't know whether this is documented online.) Other lesson plans available here, on subjects searchable by keyword.

• Pizzaz
     A site dedicated to providing simple creative writing and oral storytelling activities with copyable handouts. See Story Boxes, and Basket Cases in the Fiction section for simple but effective oral storytelling games. Some of the writing games could be adapted for oral telling.

• Speaking and Listening: Instructional Philosophy and Teaching Suggestions
     A very thorough look at teaching many speaking and listening skills, by Saskatchewan Education. This section lists lots of useful recommendations for before, during, and after storytelling activities. It's aimed at teaching children, but much is suitable for all ages, and includes general comments on what storytelling is. Check further up the page, and also the Table of Contents button at the top to find lots more on teaching language arts, with many checklists etc. useful for designing one's own teaching or training.

• Story Session Plans
     Sixteen lesson plans for schools, to teach tolerance, from the Storytelling Project.

• Storytelling Activities and Lesson Ideas
     Heather Forest's eclectic page of suggestions, from recreating an old time radio show, to plot structure scenarios, to story games, to a collection of proverbs. Plus many other practical resources on-site.

• The Games Compendium
     A collection of games suitable for older kids, based on the Scouting Games FAQ. The games aren't mainly around storytelling, but could be useful for activity sessions. Categories are: Quick 'n Easy Games, Races and Relays, Obstacle Courses, Other Games, Pencil and Paper Games, Memory Games, Water Games, Wide Games, Strategy Games.

• Tim Sheppard: some games and exercises
     A long and detailed discussion from myself on the use and practice of some storytelling exercises, along with advice on performance techniques, hosted on Richard Martin's site.

• Tips for Teachers
     A collection of ideas for storytelling activities in the classroom.

• Using Fairy Tales to Promote Retention of Ethical Systems
     A rough lesson plan to enable students to develop a "hook" by which they can remember ethical principles. Part of an Activities Exchange site with many practical activities mainly around biology education and science promotion.

• World-Wide Webs - String Figures from around the World
     A wonderful and well-presented site by Richard Darsie, maintainer of the Tales of Wonder site. String games like Cat's Cradle are played around the world, and have a close link with folklore and stories. They are a fascinating activity for storytellers. This site gives full instructions with photos, plus history etc.
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Articles

• African Odyssey: Storytelling and the Arts
     Explains African customs around Why We Tell Stories, What Makes a Story Worth Telling, and How Are Stories Told. Part of an educational project on Africa at the Kennedy Center.

• Anthropological Index Online
     The Anthropological Index to Current Periodicals in the The Anthropology Library at the British Museum. Covers cultural and social anthropology, archaeology, biological and physical anthropology, and linguistics, in various languages. This search page will help you find a wide variety of articles on storytelling or many other anthropological subjects. However, the article themselves are not online - they can be seen at or ordered from academic libraries such as at the British Museum.

• Aristotle's Poetics
     The full text of one of the most influential works on the nature of narrative and dramatic structure. But the book is so short (only about twice as long as the summary site below!) that it's not unreasonable to read the whole thing here online.

• Aristotle's The Poetics (Student summaries)
     This very brief summary of each section is sufficient to gain a quick overview of Aristotle's masterwork on narrative structure and drama. For a bit more authority and detail see the summary site below.

• Aristotle: Poetics (Summary)
     Written in 330 BC, this text is still overwhelmingly influential in understanding narrative structure and drama. This site takes you through each of the twenty-six books of the Poetics and gives a summary of Aristotle's arguments. Very useful for anyone wanting to understand how stories work. A glossary provides an excellent vocabulary of both words and ideas for constructing or analysing stories.

• BBC News | UK | A story in the telling...
     A UK news article interviewing Inez Aponte, Clive Hopwood and Tina Bilbé about storytelling's nature and purpose.

• BBC News | UK | What makes a good story?
     About the importance of telling stories to kids - including reading from books. Some very basic tips.

• Before Electricity, There Was Storytelling
     Short article from the Smithsonian magazine, 1997, on the USA's National Storytelling Festival. Includes a couple of short audio clips of Donald Davis, a famous teller.

• Brother Blue's Secret
     "Brother Blue is a storyteller of some fame, a jazz-riffing peacock of a performer, a first class wordconjuror..." This article gives a real sense of the depth and profundity of storytelling, and it gives away the secret of all secrets, which lies at the heart of all good storytelling.

• Call of Story - Articles
     A good sized archive of articles by many different contributors on storytelling in education, how to tell stories, personal storytelling, and community events. The rest of the site is inspiring, from a TV documentary on storytelling.

• Cape Clear Island Storytelling Workshops
     Current dates, but also lengthy diaries of previous years' workshops. Learn something of the approaches of Liz Weir, Dan Yashinsky, and Sheila Stewart. Sheila is one of the last true tradition bearers of the Scottish Travellers, and her Conyach storytelling teaching is an invaluable insight into telling from the heart not the head.

• Contracts and Storytellers: If Only I'd Known
     Brief article by Elizabeth Ellis, from the Tejas Teller, about how and why one should always use a contract for gigs.

• CSUF -- Folklore Home Page
     Includes the vast Traditional Ballad Index of Folk Songs, and the Central California Folklore Archives

• E-Journals In 'Folklore & Folklife'
     Online access to a number of serious or academic journals. Some but not all of these are accessible to the public. This is still a huge resource, provided by Penn University Library, USA, and a great way to research folkloric topics and storytelling traditions.

• Eric Miller's articles on storytelling
     Ten major academic articles and works (theses etc.) on Storytelling, and also some on Tamil Nadu, South India, including videos of traditional storytelling. Subjects include: 12 Principles of Face-to-Face Storytelling; Visuals Accompanying Face-to-Face Storytelling; Roleplaying in an African Storytelling Event; Continuity and Change in Chinese Storytelling; The Performance of Epic; The Performance of Epic and the Practice of Lament. Eric's site also has other important resources listing college-level courses available in storytelling, and a large, partially annotated Storytelling bibliography.

• Eric Miller's storytelling course syllabus
     Long article and complete syllabus on The Storytelling Process - rather academic but useful.

• Essays on the Foundation of Storytelling
     These various essays by Bill Johnson consider at length and depth the human need for stories, consider structure, dynamics and expectation, and develop ideas about how screenwriters and authors can therefore develop better written stories. He also offers a book with more detail. Bearing in mind he means mainly storywriting, not telling, here are the titles of just the first essays: Understanding What a Story is; Foundation Principles of Storytelling; Understanding the Process of Storytelling.

• Finding Stories That Convey Your Values (by Doug Lipman)
     Article from The Storytelling Coach, including tips on clarifying the value, scanning for memories and images, developing the stories, and experiments in value telling. Doug is a well-respected storytelling coach. There are many other related articles here too.

• Folklore: What is it?
     An introductory and useful article from The British Columbia Folklore Society.

• Griots and Griottes
     Journalistic article on the west African bardic tradition and its current state.

• If You Believe in Fairies, Don't Bulldoze Their Lair
     A news story that hit international headlines, about the conflict between the old and new worlds: still-strong Irish taboos about fairies preventing modern road-building. Famous Irish storyteller and expert on fairy lore Eddie Lenihan was reluctantly at the heart of it, as this fascinating article describes. The events after this article was written became even more extraordinary, with labourer walk-outs and deaths, though I don't know whether this is documented online. There's also an associated school lesson-plan designed around the article.

• Interpreting Fairytales
     A long and intelligent article covering many interesting points, with many illustrative quotes, and focusing mainly on the difference between literary interpretation and new methods developed from Artificial Intelligence research - methods which turn out to be exactly what storytellers have always done. Thought-provoking. Follow the top link back to a whole library of similarly erudite and stimulating articles on many aspects of story, myth and more.

• Italo Calvino on Myth
     One of Italy's most respected writers, and a dedicated collector of folktales, comments on the nature of storytelling and its ongoing relationship to myth.

• Jack Zipes Interview
     The author and academic on fairytales gives an interview about the nature, role and current state of fairytales. Also links to two bibliographies on the subject.

• Jay O'Callahan's Words
     A number of rich and revealing articles about the storytelling life, from on of the USA's best-loved storytellers.

• Journey In Search of Self
     Huge collection of long articles covering many very interesting areas of theory and study of story, myth and the journey metaphor.

• Keeping a Story Box
     An article by Judy Nichols, from the Tejas Teller, on cataloguing and keeping track of your storytelling repertoire.

• Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies
     Biennial scholarly publication. This site has no online articles, just information, but look at the contents here then read the articles at the related site.

• Motif Index of Folk Literature: What it is and What it does.
     An introduction to this essential tool for storytellers and folklorists researching or looking for tales. A useful article from the British Columbia Folklore Society, along with a bibliography of such indices and lists of motifs.

• Oral History: Techniques and Procedures
     This is an entire book by Stephen E. Everett, Center of Military History, United States Army. It gives general advice on improving interview techniques and presents guidelines for conducting, transcribing, and using oral histories. Although written to help historians collect material about wartime events, it is of course helpful to anyone in any other field. A partial list of contents: 1. What is Oral History?; 2. Oral History in the Army; Part II: The Spoken Word in Peacetime; 3. The Preparatory Phase; Contacting Interviewees; Conducting Background Research; Creating a Question List; 4. The Interview; Setting the Proper Atmosphere; The Payoff; Access to Interviews; Post­Interview responsibilities; 5. Product Management; Transcribing; Editing; Publishing; Storing; 6. End­of­Tour Interview Program; 7. Videotaping Interviews.

• Pig Psychology - from The Three Little Pigs
     An extract from The Uses of Enchantment, The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales, by Bruno Bettelheim. This examines one element of psychology as revealed by the tale, and has something to say about the differences between fables and fairy tales.

• Plot and Story Development
     A large resource of articles at Screenwriters Forum, examining the nature and dynamics of plot, story structure, the psychology of story and much more. Although these are written for screenwriters, storytellers can also benefit greatly from understanding the nuts and bolts of how stories work. Another page of articles covers character development and dialogue, which may have some interest, though the oral tradition does have different requirements.

• Premises in Story Games
     Ponders the nature of story, in relation to efforts to improve computer and role-playing games. Makes some interesting points about why and how we make stories.

• Story Architecture - The art of storytelling stripped down to the basic components
     An interesting look at story architecture, although from the point of view of writers

• Story Dynamics
     Doug Lipman, well-known storyteller and coach, has a large number of practical and didactic articles on many areas of storytelling, classified into: Bibliographies, Community, Education, Finding & Creating, Performing, Professional Development, Story Concepts, Story In Society, Work with Stories. He also offers other teaching resources such as tapes, books, newsletters.

• Storytelling as a community building tool
     Essay for the Global Ideas Bank, about the business and social value of storytelling. A much expanded version of the essay is available as an MS Word document here.

• Storytelling at FindArticles.com
     A top resource! This link will find over 3000 articles on storytelling from a large variety of general publications, all for free. And if you have a more specific focus, feed extra keywords into the search box. You can search for articles on any other subject too.

• Storytelling, Teaching, and Related Subjects--by Marni Gillard
     A number of practical articles, focused mainly around children and education but more widely useful too, by a committed professional teller, published author on storytelling, and former board member of the National Storytelling Network, USA.

• Storytelling: a view from Cognitive Science
     A brief statement, in reasonably lay language, of the theoretical assumptions underlying the work of a research psychologist, intrigued by the notion that the way in which the human brain evolved seemed to optimize it for telling stories. It pursues a narrative framework for how people understand and use information. Includes academic bibliography. This link retrieves an old copy of the page from the Internet Archive, as the site is currently offline.

• Storytelling: The Art Form Of Painting Pictures With Your Tongue
     A whole book online, by Michael Patterson. Discusses the role, uses and techniques of storytelling. Includes exercises, resources and a few tales. Well worth reading.

• Storytelling: the Art of Knowledge
     This exhibition, a project of the interns in the Aboriginal Training Programme in Museum Practices of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, illuminates the diversity of, and importance of sharing, narratives in six Native communities: Algonquin, Inuit, Mi'kmaq, Métis-Cree, Nisga'a and Abenaki. The site gives cultural history around storytelling, and pictures of relevant museum exhibits.

• Tejas Teller Archives
     A number of useful online articles from the Tejas Storytelling Association newsletter. Includes censorship, contracts, keeping track of your repertoire, African telling traditions,

• The Ballad of the Ballad, Poetry's Bearer of Bad News
     Discusses the nature and history of ballads as an oral art form. Enlightening and interesting. From the New York Times, by Billy Collins.

• The Endicott Studio Forum: Essays on mythic fiction, folklore, and more
     A fantastic collection of well over fifty major articles and essays, all very authoritative, long, and illustrated, on a wide variety of topics, e.g. Donkeyskin, Deerskin, Allerleiraugh; Bluebeard and the Bloody Chamber; Rites of Passage tales; the Magical Lore of Italy; Sacred Springs and Water Lore; Women and Fairy Tales; and much more. The authors are Terri Windling, much-published illustrator and author of fantasy and fairy literature, and various other well-known names.

• The Loose-Leaf Fairy Tale Book - Grimms' Fairy Tales translated by Gary V. Hartman, Jungian Analyst
     This introduction to Hartman's personal translation project is interesting for its comments on the qualities and accuracy (or lack of) of the major published translations, and on the significance of various distinctions that are lost in all English translations so far. Hartman aims for his translation to be reliable for psychologists and others wanting to delve into the meanings of the tales. Includes links to his translations of two tales, The Frog King (Iron Henry), and Cat and Mouse in Company.

• The Narrative Impulse - Changing Stories
     Donald Williams says that "we create our lives and the world with the stories we hear and tell." An essay from a Jungian Psychology site.

• The Progressive Interview | Utah Phillips
     'The Progressive', an American magazine, talks to this famous old American storyteller, activist, and folk singer. Some important acknowledgements of the common ownership of folktales and the oral tradition.

• The Web of Silence: Storytelling's Power to Hypnotize
     By storyteller Fran Stallings, on the Healing Story Alliance website. This long and in-depth article is a serious but accessible study of the storytelling trance, full of history, anecdote and inquiry (with a long list of references, for those who may want to use this to persuade the scientific of the value of storytelling). Fran interviews many storytellers and others, to address this well-known yet ignored phenomenon.

• Tiboli dreaming
     Storyteller Laura Simms gives her travel diary of visiting a remote Filipino village. A thoughtful article for the Association for Traditional Studies, illustrated with photos.

• Tom McCabe's Story Building Guide
     A useful and very practical guide for teachers to use in school lessons.

• Why Do People Read Fiction?
     A lengthy discussion of the psychological mechanics of how stories satisfy us, as part of an on-line writing course. The points are mainly just as relevant to storytellers and other portrayers of stories.

• Why Folktales? - by Rafe Martin
     Long article, first published in Storytelling Magazine in 1999, to answer the questions "Why are folktales important? Why should they be shared, retold, recreated, put in books today?" A meditation on the oral tradition, from the perspective of an award-winning writer.

• Works in Progress - the journal of the art and business of storytelling
     An online journal that started off in print, edited by Alan Irvine. A good number of interesting articles and discussions, on a variety of themes, eg. Storycrafting, the European Scene, Story Types, Why I Hate Lady Ragnell. They range between practical tips and folkloric analysis, and are joined by reviews of recordings, books etc.
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  Articles: story in education

  • AskERIC
       This is an important and large database of resources for education - over a million abstracts of documents and journal articles on education research and practice, also with an archive of questions and answers, lesson plans, and live experts - all searchable. Invaluable for stoytellers working with children, though entirely USA-based. To see full journal articles may require a fee.

  • BBC | Storytelling - benefits and tips
       A short article, adapted from a workshop by Paula Stoyle, British Council, Jordan, listing neat bullet points of benefits: What can storytelling offer?, Storytelling and intercultural understanding, Other benefits of using storytelling in the classroom, Commonalities of cultures around the world, Performance techniques

  • California Reading Association
       A position statement expressing the benefits, especially on literacy, of having storytelling in the curriculum.

  • Call of Story - Articles
       This excellent site has much on storytelling. This page lists the articles by many different contributors. Under the Storytelling and Education heading there are various articles on the subjects of: Theory and Reasoning, Tellers in Schools, Ideas for All Teachers, Ideas for Secondary Teachers, Ideas for Elementary Teachers. There are also articles on how to tell stories, and other subjects.

  • Creating Literate Worlds: The Effect of Storytelling on Children's Writing
       A study by Robin Mello, in the Lesley University : Hood Children's Literacy Project.

  • HLT Magazine - Stories and their Importance in Language Teaching
       Long article arguing that stories are central to society and should be central to language teaching for three reasons: stories offer so much richness in language learning and teaching; the aim of most language learning is to be able to present oneself as a whole person through the foreign language and that is done very powerfully through storytelling; many language teachers accept their broad responsibilities to the students as 'student developers' not only concerned with the foreign language development of their students. Stories are fundamental to one's sense of identity and to dealing with experience.

  • How Do I Convince My Principal That We're Not Just Having Fun?
       Dianne Hackworth's list of over twenty reasons why storytelling is valuable in education. No proofs or justifications, but a useful set of commonsense points.

  • Insights
       Mary Grace Ketner's compilation of quotations about storytelling contains many inspiring words, useful summaries and yes, insights.

  • ISLMC Literacy -Teaching in the Language Arts
       Lots of links to academic articles grouped into various areas. More to do with reading than storytelling, but some information here is relevant to storytellers seeking evidence on the effect of stories for learning.

  • Judith Black - Stories Alive
       Massachussetts, USA. Judith offers a number of published articles on the benefits and processes of storytelling in education, also a long and thoughtful online newsletter, and many details of her various workshops, programmes etc.

  • Linking Literature with Learning
       Not about storytelling, but this page by Kay Vandergrift examines various aspects of how literature can be used, and gives references to around fifty articles on the subject.

  • Peter Rabbit Goes Downtown -- Education Week
       Emphasizes story discussion built on a trusting relationship and the strengths that urban children bring to the classroom in terms of rich and complex oral language, and the power of stories to "inform and transform."

  • Stories in Education: Articles
       Articles by storyteller Judith Black, all published in USA regional or national magazines: Why Bother? The Uses of Storytelling in the Classroom; Fighting for the Soul: Moral Developments of the Adolescent through Holocaust Studies; Creating History Stories; A Tad of Philosophy; First Person Telling; Masturbation or Catharsis: The Possibilities of the Personal Story; Getting Real: School Residencies; The Dove and the Dragon: Binding Adult Objectives and Children's Needs in Storytelling; Gender equity: Storying the Issue.

  • Storytelling and Education at FindArticles.com
       A top resource! This link will find over 500 articles on storytelling and education from a large variety of general publications, all for free. And if you have a more specific focus, feed different keywords into the search box. You can search for articles on any other subject too.

  • Storytelling, Teaching, and Related Subjects--by Marni Gillard
       A number of practical articles, focused mainly around children and education but more widely useful too, by a committed professional teller, published author on storytelling, and former board member of the National Storytelling Network, USA.

  • Storytelling: A Foundational Pillar of Literacy
       From the Vanier Institute of the Family, Transition Magazine - March 1998. About the value and effect of telling stories both to and by children, and some theory on the nature of narrative.

  • Teaching Storytelling
       A teacher's guide compiled from many sources, but including a section called Storytelling as an Educational Tool, from Children Tell Stories: A teaching Guide, by Martha Hamilton and Mitch Weiss, which lists how children benefit from hearing stories, and from telling stories. The site gives a large resource of syllabus material - lesson plans, explanations and methods, references and more, contributed by various well known American storytellers.

  • Teaching Storytelling - NCTE position statement
       This is a statement from the Committee on Storytelling, of the National Council of Teachers of English (USA). It's a well expressed and useful document, for any who need to justify storytelling's worth to educationalists or others.

  • The Power of Storytelling. IJEA Vol. 2 No. 1
       An academic study in the International Journal of Education & the Arts, The Power of Storytelling: How Oral Narrative Influences Children's Relationships in Classrooms, by Dr Robin Mello. Mello is a professional teller herself, and gives many references to justify the use of storytellling in education, quotes from the children's responses etc. Abstract: This article presents findings from an arts-based research project that took place in a fourth-grade classroom over the period of one school year. It examines the impact of storytelling on children's self-concept. In addition, it discusses how storytelling helped children process their social experiences in school.

  • The Role of Storytelling in Early Literacy Development
       Paper by Louise Phillips, for B.Ed., giving an exposition, with references, on the benefits of oral storytelling.

  • Why Storytelling? By Marni Gillard
       A list of 41 positive effects of storytelling on children and their learning.
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  Articles: story in healing and health

  • Healingstory Newsletter
       Healingstory is a special interest group on the National Storytelling Network, USA. The Newsletters contain various substantial articles and reviews. Access previous newsletters from the drop-down box

  • Life as Fiction
       A lengthy academic analysis by a narrative psychologist, arguing that, in approaching the everyday process of life construction, it is legitimate and useful to apply critical frameworks which have originally been devised for works of fiction.

  • Narrative Psychology essays
       A number of lengthy academic essays on Life as Fiction, Literary Paths, Romance & Comedy, Re-Authoring Therapy, Narrative Partitioning. More critical theory than practical.

  • Storytelling and Healing at FindArticles.com
       A top resource! This link will find over 300 articles on storytelling and health from a large variety of general publications, all for free. And if you have a more specific focus, feed different keywords into the search box. Read the search tips for best results. You can search for articles on any other subject too.

  • The Awesome Power of "Telling The Story" - Why I'm Proud to be a Grief Counselor
       From the Center for Loss and Life Transition Library, by Alan Wolfelt who found himself having to defend his profession in the wake of the Columbine massacre. He gives a handy list of benefits of 'honoring the stories' of others.

  • Therapeutic Storytelling
       A short article by Sharon Falter, the Storytelling Maven, on the benefits and therapeutic use of storytelling.
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Background Resources

• Academic Mythology papers
     This site lists hundreds of papers for sale, to help students with their assignments. The titles and abstracts are searchable. Most are about classical mythology.

• An introduction to the Sami people.
     History, cultural information, links etc. to the Sami reindeer people (also unwelcomely called Lapps) who inhabit Lapland, Finland and other parts of Scandinavia.

• Arts and Sciences Links - Kingdom of Atlantia
     This is a very large links collection on many subjects, collected for the Society for Creative Anachronism - people involved in recreating mediaeval life and events. Therefore the information covers details on every aspect of life in those times, and practical ideas about how to find or recreate them. Subjects include Bards and Troubadours, Storytelling, Drama and Theatre, Fools and Jesters, Games and Pastimes, as well as less storytelling orientated areas such as Cooking, Quilting, Candlemaking and many other crafts / skills.

• At the Edge Archives
     Lots of articles from a magazine on archaeology, folklore and mythology.

• British Isles folklore and mythology links
     Nearly a score of links to sites either about or containing the old tales. Some sites are general, some focus on particular geographical areas.

• Candlegrove
     Ancient origins of solstice, saturnalia and yule festivals - a brief smorgasbord of interesting tidbits, plus some links to more.

• Celtic Links
     A large collection, broken down into various general categories, eg. history, archaelogy; as well as mythology and folklore.

• Cornish Culture
     A range of information on Cornwall, in the SW of England, including myths and legends.

• Cultural Education Curriculum Topic Index
     Large and eclectic resources on ancient civilizations, fairytales, and many possibly useful narrow topics.

• De Proverbio: Proverb Studies and Collections
     Online academic journals studying the origins and nature of proverbs in various languages. E-books for sale also, of proverb dictionaries.

• Encyclopedia Iranica
     A large and serious encyclopaedia covering the history and culture of Iran and therefore Persia etc. With so many stories from this area, this is a prime resource for background research, though you'll need to follow instructions to install a special font, and may run into difficulties with spellings!

• Encyclopedia of Hotcâk (Winnebago) Mythology
     This contains hundreds of stories listed by theme and story type, plus lots more resources on this whole North American culture..

• Environmental Teacher's Guides
     Very nicely presented on a number of specific nature topics, to help teach students in an active, hands-on way about how people interact with the environment and how we can best care for Earth's resources. Each guide includes goals and objectives, information, vocabulary, a bibliography, and classroom activities. Not much storytelling, but this could be integrated.

• Finnish Ancient Culture
     The lengthy preface to a translation of the national epic of Finland, this gives a description of the Finns, and of their ethical, linguistic, social, and religious life.

• Halloween History: the Real Origins
     A neo-pagan debunking of American fears over this festival. Some useful and interesting facts amongst the partisan viewpoint. However, some 'facts' often repeated by scholars aren't reliable either, e.g. there's no evidence that Druids celebrated fire festivals at all the quarters of the year - see Ronald Hutton's 'Stations of the Sun, an excellent and interesting reference work on all the British yearly festivals.

• Herodotus web site
     Herodotus' The Histories, although historical, includes many folktales, legends and semi-mythical accounts. This comprehensive site also gives a detailed synopsis of the entire large book, essays, maps and more, making it a great resource for exploring this important source of information on the ancient world.

• Hindu Books Universe
     A large number of free online books on Hindu culture, including stories, history, customs, scripture and commentary, philosophy and much more.

• Hindu Mythology
     Huge resources, including the stories, and customs, symbols etc.

• Hinduism
     This huge site must contain everything you could possibly want to know about Hindu culture and philosophy. There are large numbers of pages devoted to all manner of subjects from general to highly specific. Philosophy and religious beliefs are explained in depth. And the site features free translation into these languages: españoles - français - Deutschen - italiano - portuguêses. The opening page is a hefty 200kb so may take a while to load.

• History at About.com
     Lots of resources on all aspects, cultures and eras of history. About.com is a very usable, useful and often-updated source of information on this and many other subjects

• Iceland's House of Christmas - Santas
     A collection of pages about the lore of various Christmas traditions, including the origins of Santa Claus, the Icelandic Yulemen, Gryla, La Befana, Baboushka, and St Lucia.

• Internet History Sourcebooks Project
     An incredible site by Paul Halsall/Fordham University, comprising lots of huge reference works, all helpfully themed and structured. Each sourcebook compiles original historical texts with overviews, research and resource notes, and references. Ancient History, Medieval History, Modern History, African History, East Asian History, Global History, Indian History, Islamic History, Jewish History, History of Science, Women's History, Guide to Byzantine and Medieval Studies, Medieval New York, Saints' Lives, Medieval Music, Ancient Law, Travelers' Accounts and others. There are of course many stories for factually inclined tellers in these documents, as well as answers to story backgrounds such as how people lived/ate/dressed in the past. An invaluable resource for teachers too, as much of these materials are public domain.

• Irish Mythology Concordance
     A guide to characters and places in the Irish mythological cycle (but not the heroic, legendary, or historical material). Page references are to Lady Gregory's 'Gods and Fighting Men.' Very useful for exploring the Irish myths.

• Irish Studies Pages
     Storyteller Conrad Bladey's enthusiastic and eclectic collection of information, tales and lore, including Literature / Verse, Folklore, Seasonal Celebrations, Weddings & Wakes, Traditional Irish Crafts, Food and Drink The Pub & Recipes, Resources for Irish Gaelic, Ireland-The Island, Saint Patrick, Saint Brigid, Irish Tales, Potato Famine, Music, Song & Dance, Ireland-The Island, Ulster Art, Humor

• Korean Folktales
     An outline of Korean culture, for teachers, plus a long and detailed introduction to Korean Folklore, including shamans, cosmology etc. A dozen folktales, with commentaries, rounds it all off, and their are a couple of links for further stories.

• Links for Theatre History and Early Music
     Collected by the Centre for Research in Early English Drama.

• Masks.org
     A beautiful online museum, with pictures of masks from all over the world, contemporary and traditional, with articles and links. May be offline.

• Meanings and Legends of Flowers
     A handy resource to discover customs and lore about many plants. The information is full of snippets, but as an enthusiast's site it isn't in-depth or backed by references.

• Mediaeval Love in the Western World
     University links page to lots of resources about mediaeval life and literature (which was often full of folktales).

• Medieval Themes and Topics
     A brief page with some handy snippets on the four humours of mediaeval medicine, the four levels of allegorical interpretation - from Dante, the two kinds of love, the seven liberal arts, and the three 'matters' of romance. Part of a site with lots of resources on Chaucer.

• Mythic Crossroads: Myths and Legends
     Huge and excellent site, with comprehensive links to mythology sites and resources, divided into British, Egyptian, Greek/Roman, Norse and Other links, plus history sites too.

• MythSearch
     A directory of sites connected with mythology, folklore and religion of each culture, in the categories of: Art, Bibliographies, Electronic Texts, Festivals, General Info, Indices, Newsgroups, Societies, and Traditions and Doctrines. A useful reference - some sites are reviewed for content and relevance, and there's a site-wide search engine - but many categories are fairly sparse, and no myth texts are archived here, so this isn't yet a one-stop site to find myths.

• ORB: The Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies
     An academic site, written and maintained by medieval scholars for the benefit of their fellow instructors and serious students. But as well as authoritative articles there are resources of general and teaching interest too.

• Orkney Heritage Website
     The Orkney Islands, off the coast of Scotland, have a rich folklore. There's a page here overviewing the lore, characters and creatures, with lovely drawings. Also pages on the history and archeology.

• Research Into The Teachings of Ancient Shambhala
     A treasure trove of wider interest than the title suggests. Over fifty pages of historical and mythological notes on a wide variety of subjects and places, from Eastern Europe and the Middle East to the Far East. Useful for anyone investigating the stories of ancient cultures of these areas, or their myths and symbolism. A small selection of the pages: Historical Timeline; Ancient Kingdoms, Cultures, Countries, Clans; Languages and Linguistics; Mithras, Indo-European Sky Gods; Explorations of the Jinn Descriptions in Islam; Calendars, Cycles, Astrology, Time. +

• Russian customs, holidays and traditions
     An informative series of articles which give a good sense of the old traditions. The Links page also gives more sites on these and related Russian themes. This site also has a good number of Russian folktales, and sells traditional Russian crafts which often have connections with the fairytales.

• Russian Nesting Dolls (Matryoshka)
     This series of beautifully illustrated pages gives a detailed history of these traditional toys, and the site has many of them for sale on different themes. There is a whole collection depicting traditional Russian fairytales. The site also offers other Russian crafted items illustrating fairytales.

• Sacred Woods and the Lore of Trees
     Brief guide to traditional characteristics and lore of the Alder, Apple, Ash, Beech, Birch, Blackthorn, Elder, Elm, Fir, Hawthorn, Hazel, Holly, Larch, Maple, Oak, Pine, Poplar, Rowan, Willow, Yew.

• Shepherds' Counting
     An article and table on an ancient Celtic rhythmic counting system still in the oral tradition. A fascinating tidbit.

• Sounds of the World's Animals
     Wonderful for anyone telling animal stories. For each animal the words that people use to name or make the animal sounds are given, in multiple languages. For some animals there's also a sound file so you can hear the real sound.

• String Figures
     A wonderful little site giving moving animations, photos and instructions on exactly how to make several string figures. Also includes an animated section on how to juggle. String figures are connected with storytelling in many cultures, though this site doesn't give any details.

• Teaching Tolerance
     A project, magazine and more, aimed at countering intolerance in schools and youth, with lots of resources, activities and lesson plans. Ideal for using with storytelling for spreading understanding etc.

• The Classics Pages
     Everything about Graeco-Roman mythology - from the serious to the wacky, via the useful. Games in Latin, role playing games, bookshop and loads more.

• The Costume Page
     Huge collection of resources on costume - history, current sources, making, you name it. Useful both for educators and for those who wish to research historical details of costume, to make or tell about.

• The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries
     Classic book by WY Evans-Wentz - essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the background of fairies and other such beings in stories. This is the complete book text online for free, courtesy of sacred-texts.com who have a number of other related books as well as story and myth texts.

• The Historical Mermaid
     Surveys the history of mermaid stories, beliefs etc. in various cultures, under headings of Folklore and Legends, Faerietales, Sightings, Art Gallery, Weblinks, Sources.

• The Reference Desk at Carrie
     Links to large numbers of dictionaries, including translation dictionaries, thesauri, and an index of resources for historians which covers a great many individual countries - useful for background information.

• The WWW Virtual Library for Theatre and Drama
     A huge and authoritative guide to resources on the web, covering every area imaginable.

• Theatre-link
     A comprehensive guide to resources for theatre and the performing arts.

• Theatre Sites on the Web
     Huge collection of links to everything theatre-related, including organisations, publications, non-Western theatre, acting, community and kid's theatre. Perhaps most fascinating is the very large collection of theatre history resources, from classical and medieval onwards.

• Welsh Myth Concordance
     More of a dictionary, since page numbers are not given, this long list of Welsh names from the four branches of the Mabinogi gives an explanation of the background and role of each character and place. Very useful for exploring Welsh mythology.

• Yamada Language Center
     A remarkable collection of links - all usefully reviewed - to websites on languages. Over 150 languages covered, from ancient to modern, international signing to Klingon. The resources range from dictionaries, grammar and fonts, to culture and history. Useful for anyone researching stories etc. from around the world.
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  The Fool

  • Act of Life Productions
       Theatre research and training, in The Fool, Forum Theatre, Voice, Dance and more. Based in Bristol, England, but Franki Anderson the acclaimed main tutor travels internationally to train and play with Fools. See this page for some brief ideas on the core elements of being a Fool. Franki is one of the main teachers of Fooling, as it has evolved as a contemporary rediscovery of the essence of the European improvisatory Fool tradition.

  • At the Edge: The Wise Men of Gotham
       A long and detailed article on fools and fool tales, from the archive of a magazine on archaeology, mythology and folklore.

  • CLEVERFOOL - Patrick Duffy
       Modern day fool in New Zealand, doing theatre and corporate entertainment.

  • Clowning History
       A short survey of the history of clowning and fooling, including a great story about Nasir Ed Din (Nasrudin), the wise fool of Tamurlane the Great.

  • Decameron Web - Jesters
       A short description of jesters, as related to those mentioned in the Decameron - an important collection of tales from mediaeval Italy. Mentions the crucial fact that good humour was thought to bring luck, hence jesters did also.

  • Feast of Fools
       A detailed description of this bizarre rite that was widespread for several centuries, where the normal sacred order was inverted, the Lord of Misrule presided in church, and the liturgy was officially profaned. This site gives actual examples of the liturgy and other historical detail.

  • Feast of Fools - Catholic Encyclopedia
       The official Roman Catholic view gives some interesting and detailed history of this ancient practice, and links to articles on the related subjects of the Feast of Asses,and the Feast of the Boy Bishop.

  • Festival of Fools, Grogans Pub, Dublin
       A festival of all things Foolish, dedicated to the famous writer Flann O'Brien. Bits of mildly interesting information are scattered around this slightly untogether site with no navigation. The festival doesn't seem to have happened from 2001.

  • Fool's Paradise
       Despite the fool being a different archetype to the trickster, this links site presents resources on the figure of the trickster, with just a few references to fools. But the range is excellent, with whole categories of sites from each of thirteen geographical / cultural areas, giving a thorough overview of tricksters around the world, topped off with a large bibliography.

  • FoolesTroupe email list - Yahoo!
       The Virtual Fooles Troupe are dedicated to reviving the mediaeval status of the Fool. A humorous and reasonably active list.

  • God's Fool
       An interesting article about C.S. Lewis, author of the Narnia chronicles, the Screwtape Letters etc., comparing his life with that of a divine or wise fool. An insight into the relevance of Fooling to 'real life'.

  • Jester's Mask
       An amazing cornucopia of a site, with masses of information and resources, and nicely designed, though with a very foolish colour scheme that's often hard to read and can make the navigation invisible. Contents include: a gallery of around 70 jester/fool images of all kinds; legend and history around the world; fools in literature and the media, including a good bibliography with annotations, and a filmography; and a very good collection of well-annotated web-links. Full marks!

  • Jester Pages
       A useful and informative site, with pages on the history of the fool, costume, famous fools, modern fools, myth-busting, FAQs, and a range of links to more sites.

  • JESTERLIFE
       Beatrice Otto is mad about jesters, and has written a major book on them, "Fools Are Everywhere: The Court Jester Around the World". Hidden next to the book reviews is a link to a couple of lengthy excerpts for you to read, and a long and informative interview. The rest of the site promises much, with various nicely designed features, but hasn't been developed or updated in quite a while. Nevertheless, there's some great, rare, and well-informed material here.

  • Jesters in Religion - the Holy Fool
       A brief collection of quotes and references to the Holy Fool in Christianity, Judaism, and Sufism (Islam). Jesus Christ, St Francis of Assisi, Abu Sa'id and of course Nasruddin have all been described as holy Fools. This subject hints at the true role and origins of the Fool.

  • Multicultural Clowns
       A brief collection of notes on clowns and fools in various cultures, including Asian and Native American, plus a non-annotated copy of a list of names that is better consulted at the Jester's Mask - see above. The names listed were used for clowns in various countries, but the other site gives explanations, which helps since some of these names were used more for entertainers of other kinds.

  • Nasreddin Hodja
       Erol Beymen's whole site about the popular wise fool. A preface and biography give lots of information. Over seventy short tales are categorised by subject. The graphics page has good high resolution scans of illustrations, but beware the download time for this 2Mb page! The training page has a children's study page of Hodja reading exercises, but beware the Learning Exercises - the java applets crash my browser every time. The bibliography runs to 22 books on the Hodja, and the 36 sites on the weblinks page makes this a great resource for finding out more.

  • Nasreddin Hodja's CV
       A biography of this famous Wise Fool, and a linked page of almost 40 short tales about him.

  • Noodleheads - The Wisdom of Fools
       Barry McWilliams' comprehensive page on fools in stories gives an introduction to noodleheads or fools in general, the Merry Men of Gotham, the Wise Men of Chelm, Tyl Eulenspiegel, and the Hodja, along with many weblinks and books for each, plus a few sites with such stories.

  • The Court Fool - His Origins, Golden Age, and Disappearance
       Discusses the Fool in some depth. This page is acessed using the miracle internet archive, The Wayback Machine, as the original no longer exists.

  • The Court Fool: the tradition and in Shakespeare
       A shortened précis of the long 'The Court Fool' article listed at the neighbouring link here, but still detailed enough to give a useful review of Fooling history.

  • The Fool And The Joker
       A short essay on the history and nature of these figures on playing cards, in both the modern and Tarot packs, at Andy's Playing Cards site. Almost thirty historical illustrations.

  • The Fools Parade and the Feast of Fools
       Short article, with a great passage from 1583 by an eye-witness of the public election of the Lord of Misrule.

  • Tolstoy - The Story of Iván the Fool (1885)
       This is a literary fairytale by Tolstoy, involving the traditional foolish youngest son, i.e. not a court fool or jester, who wins out by his innocent deeds.
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Books, Magazines and Recordings

• Aaron Shepard's Storytelling Bookshelf
     A few of Aaron's favourites, including Storytelling Guides, Story Collections, and Storyteller Reference

• August House books
     USA publisher of storytelling books, CDs and tapes. Online shopping available.

• Bibliographies from Story Dynamics
     Four compilations from different storytellers: A Storytelling Bibliography, Recent Storytelling Titles, Resources for Storytellers, Selected Bibliography of "Formula Tales".

• Bibliography for Narrative Therapy
     Huge but not annotated, this list is of theoretical books on analysis and counseling about the internal narratives that people develop to explain their lives and roles to themselves and others. See the Special Interests section below for websites about narrative therapy.

• Books about Urban Legends
     Compiled at the Urban Legends Reference Pages (aka Snopes), these books are pictured and described, in the categories of: Urban Legends (General Audience), Urban Legends (Young Readers), Folklore Textbooks, Business, College Folklore, + Cokelore, Curious Collections, Factual Fallacies, Fiction, Humor

• Business Storytellers - Books, Links and Resources
     Some good references for books not just on storytelling but for applying the principles in life, and on various related themes.

• Cal Poly story biblio.
     A list of reference materials and curriculum guides, story telling methods, folktales and myths, lesson plans for storytelling, media materials, a list of journal articles and ERIC resources.

• Caldecott Medal Winners
     A list of the winners of this book award, 1938-2000.

• Carol Hurst's Children's Literature Site - Reviews and teaching ideas for kids' books.
     Large and highly helpful site. Reviews of books and information on topics concerning educators and storytellers. Lists books conveniently by title, author, type and grade level, and includes subjects such as Quests, Mythology (Greek and Roman), Mysteries, Bullies, Fools and Tricksters.

• Center for Studies in Oral Tradition
     Oral Formulaic Theory and Research: An Introduction and Annotated Bibliography. Absolutely immense, mainly academic and technical, but of interest to storytellers wanting some theoretical background information on this particular subject. Plus a separate author index to the oral tradition in general, and some links

• Children's and Young Adult Literature Research Guide
     Although specific to St. Norbert College Library, this guide mentions and annotates a number of useful reference works.

• Children's Literature - Best Books Lists
     A long list of links pages from other sites, all listing recommended children's literature.

• Crafting Stories
     A short un-annotated bibliography from East Tennessee University's Masters degree programme, of books for crafting mainly personal stories.

• Dianne Hackworth's biblios
     Extensive lists of books on: skill and methods, storytelling and education, collections of stories for telling, multicultural collections, telling personal and family stories, about storytelling, stories about stories or storytelling, scary story collections. No reviews.

• Doty Coyote's Resources
     Storyteller Thomas Doty's very useful page of several biblios, including some extensive reviews and useful annotations, covering books not only on storytelling, but those useful to tellers wishing to get a wide grounding in skills, plus lists of films, an

• English Language Arts 6-9
     Huge, well-organised site primarily for teachers of 6-9th grade children, with full references, annotations, summaries, and suggested uses.

• English Translations of Medieval Works
     This bibliography covers all subjects, but includes many mediaeval sources of tales. If you want to find a modern edition of an old tale collection etc. and aren't sure whether there has been one, here's a very large list (though not right up to date).

• Enzyklopädie des Märchens
     Use Altavista's webpage translation service if you don't read German. This Encyclopaedia is an important academic study of folktales. Site offers some sample entries in German and a list of contents, but this work is a printed book for sale.

• Eric Miller's storytelling bibliography
     Very extensive Storytelling (Oral Narrative) Bibliography, partially annotated.

• Fairy Tale Bibliography
     Professor Wally Hastings gives a good-sized and usefully annotated listing of books for his university course in the categories of: Useful compilations of folk fairy tales; Classical literary fairy tales; Modern revisionist fairy tales; Fairy-tale criticism.

• Fairy Tale Bibliography (Long)
     A non-annotated list from Jack Zipes, the well known writer and academic on the subject. There are also links to a shorter bibliography focusing on feminism, and to an interview with Zipes on the nature of fairytales.

• Fairy Tale Resources
     Three pages of bibliography on the literary fairytale and the study of folklore, from an academic course. No annotations.

• Fairy Tales - adult versions
     Kay E. Vangergrift's list of books containing or based on adult (i.e. original) versions of fairytales, plus some books about fairytales. No annotations.

• Fairy Tales and Fables
     Three CDs - Celtic Folklore Legends; Fairy Tales and Fables; Golden Age Children's Books - of texts and lots of illustrations from a large number of quality books. Many of the real classics are here - Joseph Jacobs, Grimms, Andrew Lang, Aesops, de la Fontaine, Perrault and many more. There are many beautiful illustrations from highly collectable old books. This was one of the most comprehensive dedicated online archives of fairy and folk tales, but is now only available on CD..

• Fairy Tales, Folk Lore, and Myth
     Long list of links to books of fairy tales, grouped by country. The links are all to Amazon Books, and this site has pics of the covers but doesn't give any of its own description for them - but an interesting resource nonetheless.

• Folk Tale Books for Storytelling
     A list of over 300 books, with price and age suitability. Unfortunately the list hasn't been updated since 1996.

• Folklore Books online
     The Online Books Page's direct links to over sixty full book texts. Covers books of folktales, including many classics, and books about folklore study etc.

• Folklore Research Guide - Boston University
     A briefly annotated listing of reference works in the library catalogue, divided into: Guides; Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, and Handbooks; Tale Type- and Motif-Indexes; Indexes, Abstracts, and Full Text Sources; Bibliographies and Catalogs.

• Folktales and Fairytales From South America
     An index to folktales and fairytales from South America and the Caribbean. Each tale title is indexed, as well as the book it can be found in, and the country it is from. Very useful for tracking down tales, but you'll have to buy the books to get the tale texts themselves.

• H-Nilas Stories for the Seasons Bibliography
     A good and wide ranging biblio covering folklore and customs, Earthday and ecological story books and more. Plus some weblinks.

• Healing Story Bibliography
     The Healing Story Alliance has a very well-organised database of over 160 books, tapes, videos, periodicals and other resources related to the use of storytelling as a healing art. This page gives powerful themed searching for many specific health areas. Only some of the resources are annotated with descriptions.

• How to Get Started as a Professional Storyteller
     Book by Chris King

• Japanese Tales
     Nearly a hundred books of Japanese folktales and other stories, available online from Atrium Books.

• Legendary Tours Recommended Books
     Nearly a score of titles, with brief annotations, on Irish and Celtic mythology, by a storyteller and tour guide in Ireland.

• Marketing Booklet for Storytellers
     Written by a storyteller for storytellers, a book to help professionals market themselves. There's almost no information on the contents though.

• Motif Index: Bibliography of the BCFS.
     The British Columbia Folklore Society has a substantial bibliography of motif indices, and some good information about what such indices are (an important way to find, compare, and research folktales)..

• Multicultural Storytelling Project
     Biblios, each with a dozen to 30 titles, in: Folklore and Storytelling; Storytelling - Study and Teaching; Storytelling in Literature; Narratives and Therapy. Unfortunately no annotations.

• Mythology and Folklore research guide
     University at Buffalo Libraries - Lockwood -

• Mythology CD - Complete Encyclopedia of Greek and Roman Mythology
     A reference CD available in two versions - full at $150, or abridged for schools at $25. Full version has 8000 entries in the indices of characters, authors, sagas, places and concepts, plus 30,000 pages of hypertext in the categories of Encyclopedic Style (multiple versions of myth texts), Academic Commentary, Modern Literature, Narrative Style, Depth Psychology, Miscellany (dissertations and interpretations), and Classical Sources links.

• Online Book - Children's Literature: A Guide to the Criticism
     This site is mainly divided into several very large annotated bibliographies. Beware, a couple of the pages are nearly 1 MB each, and will take time to load. But they are thorough, categorised and with much useful commentary. However they deal with all aspects of children's literature, not just folktales etc.

• Online Books for Educators
     The Internet School Library Media Center's large index of websites hosting entire online texts, categorised under various headings.

• Online Books Page
     This is the first place to look if you want to find any online text. Over 18,000 free full book texts are linked, with more every day - fiction, non-fiction, everything. Search by author or title or browse the categories. Find classic stories, myths, epics etc. from every tradition, text books to teach you techniques, history and background information. The news page helps you keep up with the constant additions.

• Oxford World's Classics
     Oxford University Press publish a great many classics in cheap but good paperback editions. Although the emphasis is on literature, they have many classic epics and collections of oral tales, e.g. Icelandic sagas, Chaucer, various Arthurian tales, Til Eulenspiegel, the Panchatantra etc. There's an email service to let you know newly published titles, plus links to other classics sites.

• Practical Storytelling
     A detailed description of some good key books for gaining practical skills, including general performance skills such as gesture and voice, from the ETSU Masters Degree in Storytelling curriculum.

• SMC Biblio of storytelling
     Bibliography based on the library of the South Mountain Community College Storytelling Institute, covering: the Art of Storytelling; Stories - African-American, Chinese, Hispanic, Japanese, Jewish, Native American, Other Cultures, Southwest USA & Arizona, Spanish Language Materials, General Interest: Myths, Folktales, etc, Audio & Video Cassettes.

• Sources for the Analysis and Interpretation of Folk and Fairy Tales
     Lists of books that deal with the analysis of fairy or folk tales, from literary as well as psychological traditions, in the categories of: General, Psychoanalytic, Feminist, Literary, Youth, Aged/Elderly, Specific Cultures, Bibliographies. Many titles are linked to Amazon for purchase.

• Story Arts - A Storytelling Bookshelf for Teachers
     A basic collection of Essential Books About Storytelling in the Classroom, World Folktale Anthologies For Storytellers, plus links to Heather Forest's own books and storytelling tapes. Books About Collecting Family Stories

• Storytelling books at the Baldwin Project
     A simple list of ten titles from the early 20th century, on the art of storytelling. The Baldwin project puts whole book texts online, but none of these are yet, though at least a couple of them are online elsewhere. For now, this is an interesting list of books to look for secondhand or online - see the Online Books Page above.

• Storytelling Foundation International: Bibliographies
     Bibliographies of storytelling and business excellence, subdivided into various subjects around leadership and management.

• Storytelling References & Bibliography
     From the Internet School Library Media Center's Handbook on Storytelling. Quite a few interesting titles, but not annotated.

• Storytelling Tapes - Sources and Reviews
     Miriam Nadel's compilation of publishers with tape catalogues, and of storytellers offering their own tapes. Brief descriptions.

• Telling Tales book lists
     Telling Tales has a moderate number of in-print books listed, divided into How To books, and story books from each continent. Each has a photo of the cover, short annotation, and best of all, a link to buy it online from Amazon.

• The Art of the Story-teller - Marie Shedlock
     The full text of this 1915 classic book by Marie Shedlock is online here. The chapters are the Difficulties of the Story; The Essentials of the Story; The Artifices of Story-Telling; Elements to Avoid in Selection of Material; Elements to Seek in the Choice of Material; How to Obtain and Maintain the Effect of the Story; Questions Asked by Teachers. Then the second half of the book contains 18 stories, and a bibliography of further reading, with live weblinks to online story versions.

• The Green Mythological Booklist
     Kim Burkhardt's huge bibliography, posted regularly to alt.mythology, here presented on a convenient and organised website. The books are classified according to culture, but unfortunately aren't annotated and neither are the references fully detailed. Nevertheless, an essential resource.

• The Story Connection - Storyteller's Library
     Dianne de Las Casas has a long list of resources: Books, Storytelling Book Publishers, Audio Cassettes, Video Cassettes, Periodicals, Catalogs, Storytelling Organizations, Articles (on business for tellers). The books are divided into Art and Practice, Business of Storytelling, and Storytelling in Education.

• The Story Connection - The Professional Storyteller's Business Handbook
     Dianne de Las Casas' book on all the practical matters at which you need to get effective.

• Traditional Storytelling Today: An International Sourcebook
     Excellent reference book edited by Margaret Read Macdonald, but expensive. This is the full list of contents. See below for Amazon's reviews.

• Traditional Storytelling Today: An International Sourcebook
     Margaret Read Macdonald has compiled a 700-page book of essays on storytelling traditions from all over the world - an important and unique study. All storytellers should find a great deal to learn from, though the price is high. This link is to the book at Amazon. See above for the long list of contents.

• Yellow Moon Press
     USA Publisher dedicated to the Oral Tradition: + Storytelling, Poetry, and Music, with books, CDs and tapes. Online shopping available.
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  Magazines and Newsletters

  • Australian Storytelling Guild
       A great site, with links to guilds in every Australian state, plus large numbers of stories, good articles, details on magazines, festivals, books etc.

  • Cultural Analysis - an interdisciplinary forum on folklore and popular culture
       A journal covering all sorts of folk customs. Each whole volume is freely downloadable.

  • Fabula - Journal of Folktale Studies
       Of German origin, though I think the journal may be published in English too? The website is.

  • Facts & Fiction
       Independent quarterly UK storytelling magazine dealing with the traditional oral art and more. A few past articles and stories are on-line. The site http://www.firstwriter.com/store/products/magazines/factsfiction.htm gives online ordering or subscription in any currency.

  • Maledicta Journal
       The International Journal of Verbal Aggression. An extraordinary mix of popular and academic study of the most ignored area of language. For those that love even bawdy or obscene folk customs.

  • Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies
       Biennial scholarly publication. The site has no online articles, just information.

  • Parabola Magazine - Myth,Tradition & the Search for Meaning
       Since 1975 this quarterly magazine has explored one theme per issue, with in-depth articles, stories and more, from eminent contributors. Accessible and wide-ranging. Some material available online from the current issue only, plus a list of themes from back issues, and a substantial catalogue of books, audio and video published by Parabola.

  • Points of Entry: Cross-Currents in Storytelling
       New journal appearing yearly, which explores cross-currents in storytelling in reporting, fiction and oral tradition and weaves connections among reporters, editors, teachers, students and storytellers in the oral tradition. Little online content except previews of the print journal, and unfortunately even the basic information is mostly formatted as Adobe Acrobat files, so you'll need the viewer.

  • The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
       One of the USA's leading children's book review journals for school and public librarians. Gives awards for top books and publishes The Bulletin Storytelling Review which reviews audio and video of storytelling. Archives available online.
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Children's Literature

• Children's Literature -- Web resources
     A few good links to sites focusing primarily on books, but with some useful resources on stories themselves and storytelling.

• Children's Literature - Lectures and Slides
     A brief illustrated history of early children's literature, with pictures of rare hornbooks, woodcuts etc.

• Children's Literature Web Guide
     CLWG is a large site, very well organised and helpful, giving themed resources for themed people.

• de Grummond Children's Literature Collection
     One of North America's leading research centers in children's literature, part of Special Collections at The University of Southern Mississippi. The main focus is on American and British children's literature, historical and contemporary. Holds the original manuscripts and illustrations of more than 1200 authors and illustrators, as well as 70,000+ published books dating from 1530 to the present. This site gives some virtual exhibitions of beautiful books (very slow to download) and search access to their database, plus links to other similar collections. Mainly useful for serious researchers.

• Kay E. Vandergrift's Special Interest Page
     An enormous resource by a university academic, on an eclectic variety of subjects mainly to do with children's literature, with a great many guides, histories, compilations, articles, booklists etc. on all these, e.g. the Snow White resources site. There's a large history of children's literature too, with loads of good scans of classic illustrations, and many biographies of authors such as folklorists. The site's structure and navigation is labyrinthine, and there's no search facility, so be sure to explore thoroughly.

• Newbery Medal Winners
     A list of the winners of this children's literature book award, 1922 - present day.

• Online Book - Children's Literature: A Guide to the Criticism
     This site is mainly divided into several very large annotated bibliographies. Beware, a couple of the pages are nearly 1 MB each, and will take time to load. But they are thorough, categorised and with much useful commentary. However they deal with all aspects of children's literature, not just folktales etc.

• The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
     One of the USA's leading children's book review journals for school and public librarians. Gives awards for top books and publishes The Bulletin Storytelling Review which reviews audio and video of storytelling. Archives available online.
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Cultural Traditions of Storytelling

• African Odyssey Interactive: Storytelling
     Part of an educational project on Africa at the Kennedy Center. Follow the links at the bottom for the main content: The Storytelling and the Arts explains African customs around Why We Tell Stories, What Makes a Story Worth Telling, and How Are Stories Told. Something Funny Happened When... section is a project for sharing stories between students in African countries and students around the world. African Stories Treasure Trove gives links to various folktales and resources.

• African Storytelling
     Long and rich page from a university course on cultures and literatures of Africa. With numerous quotations, this gives a rounded introduction to the central role the oral tradition plays in African cultures, and describes some typical practices of storytelling. The bibliography gives welcome resources for reading further.

• Cuban Storytelling
     An article on the current and flourishing scene in Cuba, by Elvia Pérez. Some brief mentions of older customs too.

• Data Bank on Traditional/Folk Performing Arts in Asia and the Pacific
     A superb resource for many hard-to-find traditional forms. Storytelling and epic-singing only get a few mentions directly, but of course many folk traditions are performances of the old stories in some way. The information given here is fairly brief but does include overviews of the history and current practices, current addresses for organisations, details of printed and audio-visual resources, and photos of the performances. An excellent resource especially for anyone wishing to travel Asia or the Pacific in search of traditional storytelling.

• Epics of the World
     A bare list of some of the great epics from cultures and countries all over the world, including Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Russia etc.

• Eric Miller's articles on storytelling
     Major academic articles and works (theses etc.) on Storytelling, and also some on Tamil Nadu, South India, including videos of traditional storytelling. Subjects include: Roleplaying in an African Storytelling Event; Continuity and Change in Chinese Storytelling; The Performance of Epic; The Performance of Epic and the Practice of Lament. These long works are full of fascinating detail, with information on both traditional and current practice. Eric's site also has other important resources listing college-level courses available in storytelling, and a large, partially annotated Storytelling bibliography.

• Georgian Toasts
     The tradition of making drinking toasts of stories in a competitive and comic way is practiced in Georgia, and also the Ukraine and Sweden. Ulf Ärnström describes the traditions and gives a number of examples. Elsewhere on his site are descriptions of Scandinavian storytelling customs - see below.

• Introduction to Asian storytelling
     Cathy Spagnoli's invaluable survey of the various styles, traditions, props etc. of the countries of Asia, plus some tales, riddles, and a bibliography.

• Japanese Culture: Medieval Literature
     This page gives a potted history and description of Japanese literature and customs, including folktales, legends and oral storytelling. Plenty of links to further information and Japanese tales.

• Kalevala
     Explores the history and cultural background to the great Finnish national epic, the Kalevala. The page on the Songs behind the Kalevala has some information on ancient storytelling custom in Finland (including a wonderful photo of an ancient cantele player), and the page on Collecting Trips has a little more, but the whole site is interesting. One page has a very useful summary of each episode of the story.

• Kalevala Metre
     A long and very in-depth look at the characteristic metrical rhythm of the Kaleva - called trochaic tetrameter - also familiar from Longfellow's 'Song of Hiawatha'. Epics are always designed to be hypnotically chanted or sung, and the large number of metres traditionally used in various cultures have long been understood by bards to each produce different qualities of trance.

• Mali Empire & Griot Traditions
     A short introduction to the history and culture of the Manding griot (jali), including their instruments, with a few web-links to more. +

• Narratology books by David Herman
     A few academic books, with descriptions.

• Narratology books by David Herman - more
     More books, some the same.

• Ozan Firat - Turkey
     This page describes the life and times of a contemporary Turkish troubadour. The details are interesting for the traditions around the saz - the traditional lute of a bardic singer/storyteller. A few links lead to other resources on Turkish music and culture.

• Rakugo - Traditional Narrative Art
     A brief description of the yose theatre where Rakugo is performed, and a quick guide to the other forms of Japanese narrative performance.

• Rakugo: Japanese Sit-Down Comedy
     A history, and description of the form and training for this very traditional Japanese comic storytelling, with a couple of sample stories.

• Rakugo: universal laughter
     A wonderful photo and a short but revealing interview with a Rakugoka - an artist performing Rakugo.

• Russian Fairy Tales
     Brief resource materials for a university course, including notes and links on: Images, Definitions, Gods, Saints, and Spirits, Feminism, Fairy Tales and Literature, Fairy Tales and Music, Additional Bibliography, Fairy Tale Archives. Only a couple of actual texts of tales, but useful glossary information for understanding Russian tales.

• Storytelling in Sweden
     Not just Sweden, but Norway, Denmark, Finland and Estonia - Ulf Ärnström describes the current storytelling scenes and gives a few resources. See above also for his article on Georgian story toasts.

• Storytelling: the Art of Knowledge
     This exhibition, a project of the interns in the Aboriginal Training Programme in Museum Practices of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, illuminates the diversity of, and importance of sharing, narratives in six Native communities: Algonquin, Inuit, Mi'kmaq, Métis-Cree, Nisga'a and Abenaki. The site gives cultural history around storytelling, and pictures of relevant museum exhibits.

• Traditional Storytelling
     Part of this very site, a major and expanding resource aiming to cover all countries of the world, with in-depth descriptions of the traditions of storytelling, both current and ancient. See also the linked pages of traditional tellers' photos, and musical instruments used by some as accompaniment.

• World-Wide Webs - String Figures from around the World
     A wonderful and well-presented site by Richard Darsie, maintainer of the Tales of Wonder site. String games like Cat's Cradle are played around the world, and have a close link with folklore and stories. They are a fascinating activity for storytellers. This site gives full instructions with photos, plus history etc.
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Digital Storytelling

• A List Apart: A Case for Web Story-Telling
     Why web marketing needs storytelling skills.

• Bubbe's Back Porch
     A well organised and presented site for sharing personal stories. You can upload your reminiscences, complete with photos, on a variety of themes.

• Design as Storytelling
     Long article on storytelling as being necessary or practical as a technique for design, and the use of stories in designing.

• Digital Storytelling
     A detailed site that offers definitions and values of this field. A good introduction to the subject.

• Digital Storytelling - Tech-Head
     Tech-Head's huge links page on this subject, but including many links on corporate telling, and oral storytelling too. The site also contains quite a few articles.

• Digital Storytelling: Is it Art?
     Two authors - Janet Murray and Sven Birkets - debate the issues of whether digital storytelling brings any advantage. A useful introduction. This Brain Tennis page at HotWired is itself an innovative parallel presentation of a debate.

• Europe of Tales
     A very pretty entertainment site if you have the patience to wait for very slow intros and transitions, an