There’s no story like an old story. They’re the best for one simple reason: they’ve stuck around. In the old days, the best tales got stuck in the listener’s heads like a tune, till they could do nothing but tell them anew.
The boring ones died, and the ones that didn’t tell us anything important faded away. The ones that remain are the ones that people could not stop going back to, even when they were told they weren’t true.
That’s why we thank folk for the stories we tell: thank the folk who kept them alive. The stories we tell stay with you. And you just might find yourself telling one or two.
And thank folk for that, too.