Ray Hicks at the first National Storytelling Festival

The National Storytelling Festival began in 1973 when 60 people came to hear a few Appalachian tales from the back of a hay wagon parked beside the town courthouse. In the decades since, those 60 people have grown to more than 10,000, and the hay wagon has been replaced by large, circus-like tents raised throughout the town. Those first mountain tales are now juxtaposed with an array of traditional, personal and contemporary stories from around the globe, spiked with the flair of poetry, blues, and ballads. The Festival encompasses a wealth of cultures, traditions and styles — a world of stories within one, historic town.