Gathering at Ceilidh Part of the resurgence of storytelling can be attributed to the rise of tourism, he said. The purpose of storytelling goes beyond mere evening entertainment, according to one of the Prince Edward Island's best-known storytellers, David Weale. Storytelling is an essential, intrinsic part of human culture. We cannot live without stories. We don't know who we are without stories.
Stories also play an important part in people's identity.
Your sense of who you are is a result of stories, and I think the most sovereign thing we do as individuals is to create the stories of our own life. Weale's stories reinforce that sentiment. Spending hour after hour picking up potatoes that have been dug up and throwing them in a basket, a boy laments not being quick enough to rest before having to move to another section of the field. Gradually he becomes angry that an older man is riding on a tractor while he has to toil with his hands. Then, one day, the boy flexes his biceps and imagines his muscles bigger than most boys his age, Weale writes.