One of the oldest archetypes; a character that is noted for his or her ability to tell tales, or at least their propensity to do so.
Sometimes the tales have a purpose in the main plot. At other times it is simply an interesting side excursion, perhaps to give the setting a feeling of depth.
Sometimes overlaps with Miles Gloriosus and The Munchausen. Could conceivably be made to overlap with Intrepid Reporter. Possibly a reflection of Most Writers Are Writers. Compare with The Bard.
For the Jim Henson series, see here.
Kitty Pryde in the classic X-Men issue "Kitty's Fairy Tale", made up a bedtime story for young Illyana Rasputin, casting herself as the heroine and other members of the X-Men as characters. Notably, Kitty cast Cyclops as a prince and Jean Grey as a princess cursed by the evil Phoenix, and gave the Scott and Jean in her story the Happy Ending their counterparts were denied.
Lyssa Drak of the Sinestro Corps loves to tell stories of her fellow corpsmen, as she is the keeper of the Book of Parallax.
DC had a number of these in their horror anthology comics, who would introduce and close out every story. Among them were Cain in House of Mystery, Abel in House of Secrets, Lucien the Librarian in Tales of Ghost Castle, and Death himself in Weird War Tales.
Star Wars Tales had a story appropriately called "Storyteller". Far in the distant future, two young boys named Remoh and Otalp find the battled body of C-3PO. The droid entertains them with the tale of a hero named Luke Skywalker, who redeemed a darkened soul (Darth Vader) and freed the galaxy from the ultimate evil (Emperor Papatine). Raiders come, destroy C-3PO, and murder Otalp. Remoh finds Luke Skywalker's lightsaber inside C-3PO's remains. Greatly inspired by the droid's tale, Remoh vows to free his people from the tyrants who rule them, declaring, "There is hope."
Fairy Tales
In The Black Thief And The Knight Of The Glen, the thief saves the lives of his companions by claiming to have been in more danger than they were, and the knight gives him their lives, one by one, to get the stories. The last story recounts how he saved the life of a baby, and the knight's old nursemaid assures him that it's true and he was the baby.
Conal Yellowclaw has the same plot, though he is the father of the men he's saving.
Also the two Intrepid Merchants in Ballad of the King's Jest by the same author.
Belgarath in The Belgariad has masqueraded as a traveling storyteller, and his storytelling abilities are genuinely good.
The Minstrel in The Last Hero, who is dragged along by the Silver Horde to chronicle their last great act of heroism. It is revealed at the end that he is only The Minstrel - no name other than that - and his entire purpose is to be the one that tells the tale. Despite his battered appearance by the end of it all, he seems to be a pretty good sport about the whole thing. Or else he has been driven insane by the ordeal and forgotten whatever name he had before.
Taleswapper (aka William Blake) from the Alvin Maker series
Sara Crewe in A Little Princess, as well as all the adaptations thereof. Especially notable in the Alfonso Cuaron film and in the anime, where her narratives are shown in detail, and become an important plot point.
The title character of The Book Thief, by Marcus Zuzak, finds she can calm people down by reading aloud to them during an air raid in World War II Dresden.
Colas Breugnon, the narrator and protagonist of the novel of the same title.
Lori's mother Beth and Dimity herself provide the tales that are to be published in Aunt Dimity's Death. Lori herself has to recount some of them to establish her identity for Dimity's executor, Willis Sr.
In Michael Flynn's The January Dancer, the harper sought out the scarred man to get him to tell her his stories, so she could write songs about them.
In J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, this is one of the things Bilbo remembers about Gandalf in the opening.
Not the fellow who used to tell such wonderful tales at parties, about dragons and goblins and giants and the rescue of princesses and the unexpected luck of widows’ sons?
Eva Luna from, well, Eva Luna is a protagonist version of this. Her talent for stories (inherited from her Missing Mom Consuelo) gets her out of poverty, solitude, and even death. And it allows her to meet her great love Rolf, the local Intrepid Reporter.
In Alethea Kontis's Enchanted, Sunday goes into the forest to read stories to the talking frog. It helps him remember having been human.
A series by Elizabeth Vaughan has Ezren Silvertongue, a storyteller by trade. In Dagger-Star, he was Made a Slave, and his cruel master cut off his tongue specifically because he was a storyteller, but the heroes save him and restore his tongue with a healing spell. A lot of Ezren's arcs involve him being insecure about storytelling being about his only talent as he is short, scrawny, and no warrior, unlike pretty much every other character. To his surprise, Bethral falls for him, partly because he is an amazing storyteller. In Destiny's Star, Ezren and Bethral live among the People of the Plains. Ezren at first fears that he will not be accepted, but discovers that the People of the Plains hold singers and storytellers in high regard.
NUMB3RS : Interestingly enough Charlie Eppes, who constructs entertaining parables to illustrate math.
Gabrielle in Xena: Warrior Princess had a fantastic flair for storytelling before she became a full-fledged Action Girl and even taught Homer a thing or two.
In Norse Mythology, Odin has charge over riddles and poetry and runes and the like.
Anansi the Spider, who even challenged the gods (or Tiger, depending on the version you're reading) so that he would be considered King of All Stories.
Her father loved me, oft invited me, Still questioned me the story of my life From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes, That I have passed. I ran it through, even from my boyish days, To th' very moment that he bade me tell it, Wherein I spoke of most disastrous chances, Of moving accidents by flood and field, Of hair-breadth ’scapes i' th' imminent deadly breach, Of being taken by the insolent foe And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence And portance in my traveler’s history.
Wendy in Peter Pan. The fact that she knows "lots of stories" is what makes Peter take her to Never Land in the first place, since the Lost Boys don't know any stories. In early drafts of the script, even the Indians listen in.
Video Games
Kaguya Houraisan, the lunar princess of the Touhou saga is a proficent storyteller that entertains people during festivals.
Manari from the Samurai ShodownSpin-OffNakoruru: Ano Kara no Okurimono. She's actually from a whole clan of these.
Homeros in Fire Emblem Jugdral's Thracia 776. His ending says he became a legend in Jugdral due to this.
Vernon from Psychonauts is an limitless warehouse of incredibly long and boring stories.
Leliana in Dragon Age: Origins. Notably, the DLC Leliana's Song is framed somewhat as her telling the story of how she split from Marjolaine. One of her companions, Sketch, makes a cameo in the sequel and is apparently being chased as a result of the tale.
Take my advice friend: stay away from storytellers. Never know what they'll say …
Varric in Dragon Age II. The Framing Device of the whole game is Cassandra questioning him on the protagonist's time in Kirkwall, and his stories are half the reason the PC becomes a Memetic Badass even before the climax.
An episode of the X-Men animated series puts Jubilee in this role, recycling some elements from "Kitty's Fairy Tale". When she and a bunch of non-powered children are trapped in a cave, she cheers them up via telling them stories where she casts herself as an Action Girl, Gambit and Wolverine were her teammates, Professor Xavier was The Mentor, Magneto as the Evil Sorcerer, Cyclops as the Prince, Jean as the Princess...
Real Life
Storytelling and oral tradition in general is historically extremely important in West African culture, to the point that one of the most iconic cultural characters from that area - Anansi - was known as the Lord of Stories. Griots or Djeli were professional traveling storytellers: revered figures in the community whose job was not only to collect stories, but to pass down all the history and culture of the places they visited.
Scottish Clans will often have an official clan bard. In times passed this could be hereditary or perhaps a close relation of the chief. They would follow close behind the chief in battle to make sure the clan's glorious deeds were recorded. The clan's inglorious deeds were of course treated differently.
