One of the advantages of giving a workshop on the first day of Paganicon was the accrued feedback.
Over the course of the next two days, numerous folks approached me and thanked me for the workshop. In such situations, I always ask: “What stood out to you? What will you remember most, say, a year from now?”
Three of them said exactly the same thing in response: “The stories.”
Naturally, I followed up with: “Did you have a favorite?”
Gratifyingly, each of the three cited a different story. One woman repeated hers back to me virtually word-for-word: an impressive feat of memory, after only one hearing.
In the absence of writing, how do oral cultures pass on information?