In Europe the book has only existed since Gutenburg printed his bible around 1455. Since then, it has established an almost unbreakable grip on the intellectual life of the West. Yet stories and the spoken word have been around for as long as man has used language to communicate wishes, hopes and fears. At their finest, these tales are called The Epic of Gilgamesh, the Iliad or An Fhiannaiocht. At their most basic, they're called spinning a yarn. Taking its theme as Giorraionn Beirt Bothar/ Two Shorten the Road, the seventh North-West International Storytelling Festival, which took place at the end of April, continued its rehabilitation of the spoken word by re-establishing its artistic credentials, and by adding another cycle to the spinning of yarns.

Organised by the Verbal Arts Centre in Derry and held in venues in counties Derry and Donegal, four days of workshops, sessions and stories brought home, to young and old, how a story well told can take possession of the imagination with an immediacy and energy which the inked page doesn't always manage. It's a simple yet profound philosophy and Liz Weir, the centre's resident story-teller and festival director, is fluent in its exposition. "We aim to introduce audiences here to the best of Irish storytelling but also to bring in the international dimension. We are a small place and I think it's important to see that other cultures have their own traditions as well," she says.

This year's festival had storytellers from Ireland, Canada, Trinidad and Scotland. This is no mere academic exercise, as the festival takes stories and their tellers out among the people to "evangelise". Sessions were held in day centres for the elderly, schools and hospitals; anywhere where someone might have a story to tell or want to listen to one being told.

Last year, 6,000 people were involved, and their continued participation is key to the event's good health, says Weir. "We're trying to encourage people to tell their own stories. The idea is that it isn't a flash in the pan, one big event, but that it will leave something behind."

During the story-telling process, the tellers can find themselves transported to new worlds. Weir met and listened to one lady of 93 tell about the day the world war began - in 1914. It is this immediacy which sparks the imagination and fuels the story. To be a good story-teller it is vital to listen, she says; it is through listening that we hear and it is through hearing that we learn the story.

The acts of speaking and listening used to be the common currency of human discourse, yet technological advances are beginning to render even the garrulous Irish mute. "We are seeing four-year olds start school who can't string a sentence together, but who are fantastic at working the video recorder and playing computer games," says Weire. "I think that's sad. I'm not saying we shouldn't use new technology but there is a deep-seated need for communication through stories. "Story-telling is personal and intimate. We see children to whom we tell stories open up like flowers to the sun. If they don't hear stories, they lose their listening skills." The day that Spud and Yam, (Kate Corkery and Winston Nzinga, a Corkonian-Caribbean duo of story-tellers) came to town proved her right. Over 100 primary school children sat mesmerised as riddles were posed and tall tales of tailors turning into hares were told. Wonder was born.

And it's not just the children who sat rapt while stories grew in the Derry air. The actor Nuala Hayes and the musician Ellen Cranitch wove their entertainment out of the most basic of props: the human voice and the flute. Tales of fairy folk and haunting melodies stitched their own magic into the festival tapestry.

While the festival offered everyone the chance to listen, it also offered the chance to learn. Dan Yashinsky, a Canadian story-teller who has travelled the world with his sagas, directed a workshop on the art of storytelling which gave the mainly adult participants a chance to tell their own stories; there were no lack of takers.

Yashinsky has a deep understanding of the tradition he has inherited and now cultivates. "I grew up hungry for stories," he says. "I grew up with survivors from concentration camps and I think I grew up very hungry to hear their stories. I knew that they had gone through tremendous and very troubling experiences. I grew up listening. The survivors realise that if they don't pass their stories along they will be the last ones to remember them directly."

Describing himself as a "a shy story-teller", Yashinsky believes that we are "neo-Chaucerians". While Chaucer lived in the middle of a "lively oral tradition" and committed it to the page, "we are bringing it off the page and back into the oral".

Lore should not be undervalued, he believes; stories save lives. "They were telling stories in the middle of the Black Death. To survive the plague, they told stories. I look around our time now and we have plagues of violence, pollution, race hatred. If there has ever been a time for stories to remember the values of life, it's now."

He draws upon personal experience to illustrate his point. His second son spent weeks in intensive care after being born. "Nothing can prepare you for that experience," he says. "You are in the most hi-tech environment you can imagine: tubes, wires, monitors. I spent three weeks sitting by his crib telling stories. You don't even know why you are doing it in a situation like that. I told every story I could think of. "I realised after a while that the human voice is a beacon and even though he was a new-born child, something was getting through. A story is about desires and longings and risks and possibilities. I used to feel with my son that I was reminding him that this was a world worth coming into."

For further information on the Verbal Arts Centre, Derry, tel: 080 1504 266946.