Communication Technology: A Stitch in Time, Part 2

       Ancient tales were passed along from mouth to ear, and glad they were who sat to hear the tales told of their foretathers and foremothers in days of yore.  (And if the tales had some of the rhyme and rhythm of the preceding sentence, all the better.)  These oral tales were the precedents of the race that set the sights in behavior and conduct for the next stages of the tribe's advance.

       Those who passed on the ancient tales in Greece, the "rhapsodes," were "song stitchers."  Rhaptein, rhaps-:  "to sew," "stitch."  Oide:  "song."  The ancient Homeric storyteller stitched together episodes from the legendary epic of the race; he also stitched together the fabric of a people, their values and societal continuity from generation to generation.