The Earliest Beginnings of Storytelling by Rosalie Warren
Why do we tell each other stories? That’s a huge question and many, many reasons have been suggested, including the need to understand where we come from (in a cosmological as well as a personal sense), to explain natural disasters, to comfort, entertain and keep ourselves from boredom, to come to terms with the things life throws at us, to explore the ‘what-ifs’ of our lives, and, of course, for the sheer joy of creation. You can probably think of at least a dozen more. Another fascinating question is when, in an individual child, does storytelling begin? As a besotted grandmother of Daisy, who has just turned two, I can report that she is already telling stories of a kind. Her current favourite involves a small plastic doll, known as ‘Lady’, who gets ‘in’ to her bright pink, daisy-spangled car at least five hundred times a day in order to ‘drive to Aldi’ (other supermarkets are available, though not, apparently, to Lady), to buy apples, pears, bananas, bread and (impressive, this...