<P> The flexibility of oral storytelling extends to the teller . Each teller will incorporate their own personality and may choose to add characters into the story . As a result, there will be numerous variations of a single story . Some tellers consider anything outside the narrative as extraneous while other storytellers choose to enhance their telling of the tale with the addition of visual and audio tools, specific actions and creative strategies and devices . </P> <P> Storytelling may be performed in many forms: in prose, in poetic form, as a song, accompanied with dance or some kind of theatrical performance, etc . </P> <P> It is likely that oral storytelling has been around as long as human language . Storytelling fulfills the need for human beings to cast their experiences in narrative form . Our ancestors probably gathered around the evening fires and expressed their fears, their beliefs and their heroism through oral narratives . This long tradition of storytelling is evident in ancient cultures such as the Australian Aborigines . Community storytelling offered the security of explanation; how life and its many forms began and why things happen, as well as entertainment and enchantment . Communities were strengthened and maintained through stories that connected the present, the past and the future . </P> <P> Telling stories is a nurturing act for the listener, who is connected to the storyteller through the story, as well as for the storyteller who is connected to the listeners through the story . </P>

When did oral storytelling most likely first develop
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