Another word for storyteller?

Question

Not just any synonym, I'm trying to think of a specific word and it's just completely escaping me.

In the middle-ages and prior, before literacy was prevalent, there were people who would go around telling stories to people. They would tell them myths, legends, lore, and historic tales.

I know there's a name for these people, and I cannot think of it. I was thinking "madrigal" or "bard" - but both those words describe people who were musicians. I'm trying to think of the word for a straight-up storyteller.

Answer 1

Bard
Chronicler
Minstrel
fabler
fabulist
Romancer
Sonneteer
Jongleur
Troubadour
Scop
Skald

These are all medieval words for stoytellers of one sort or another. Hope the one you want is here.

Answer 2

Storyteller Synonym

Answer 3

Troubadour is the generic term for poets and minstrels who flourished in southern France and in Northern Italy from the 11th through the 13th centuries. Called trouveres in northern France and meistersingers in Germany, these artists elevated storytelling as an art, and often entertained huge crowds at fairs, weddings and other medieval celebrations.

During this time, works from medieval monks had become tired. The public wasn't as interested in hymns, chronicles and treatises penned in medieval Latin. These new stories were sang, while music was played on strange, new musical instruments, brought back to Western Europe from the Crusades. Verses became quite complex in style and ranged in topics from satire, love, and politics, to debates, laments and spinning songs.

French lords wanted to hear tales of bravery about their own countrymen, and ladies were being swept away with epic love poems, as they practiced the rituals of Courtly Love. Professional singers who performed work penned by a troubadour were called jongleurs, and they might be accompanied by ioculators (jesters) and ystriones (actors).

Minstrels were found in every social class, with wealthy or noble troubadours traveling like royalty from town to town.

Answer 4

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
Another word for storyteller?
Not just any synonym, I'm trying to think of a specific word and it's just completely escaping me.

In the middle-ages and prior, before literacy was prevalent, there were people who would go around telling stories to people. They would tell them myths, legends, lore, and historic tales....

Answer 5

A Jewish storyteller is called a "maggid". But Shakespeare is often referred to as "The Bard", and he wasn't a musician, so maybe that IS the word you're trying to think of. Webster's defines bard as a "tribal poet=singer skilled in composing and reciting verses on heroes and their deeds."

Answer 6

The word you are looking for is "raconteur" and it is French in origin. Those are people who tell stories and anecdotes in an amusing manner.

I am one as I have been on many stages telling stories of all sorts.

My hero raconteur is Baron Hieronymus Munchhausen, a man known for his amazing stories. You will note that the word has two "h's" in it. There are two psychological conditions where his named is used, buy incorrectly, and they only use one "h" in the spelling. One is a Munchausen Complex, and you know dozens of people like this, which means someone who seems to have to lie even when the truth would serve him better.

Another is the Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy which is generally applied to women who will induce illnesses in their children, either by food stuffs and then take them to the doctor for treatment. What they are trying to do by doing this is a bit strange, but it seems that they are doing it just to get attention drawn to themselves. Often the child is hospitalized and improves in the hospital, but seems to get worse when their mothers visit them. They have begun using hidden video cams in the hospital rooms and they have caught dozens of mothers inducing further illness when they are being watched on video monitors.

Why both Munchausen problems seem to connote lying or doing harm to people is beyond me. Munchhausen himself only told stories to entertain. But then psychologists seem to misname a lot of problems, like the Oedipus Complex - Oedipus had no idea that he had actually killed his father and had sex with his mother - it was not like he was headed out to do it.

Answer 7

I think you're talking about Transcendentalist. These are people who went and told philosophical stories of reality. Ralph Waldo Emerson was one of them.

Answer 8

i thinkthat a bard would be the word you are looking for.

Answer 9

How about Shaman?

Answer 10

Do you mean a "troubadour", maybe?