Why “storymonger” is a great word
A person whose trade is the composition or telling of tales. The word’s lineage is plain and pragmatic: from story (a narrative or tale) and monger (a dealer or trader, from Old English mangere, 'merchant, trader'). Unlike a historian, who is bound by a duty to the verifiable past, or a raconteur, who implies a polished performer in a social salon, a storymonger is a simpler, more functional creature, trafficking in narrative as a commodity. It is the scent of ink on cheap paper in a market stall, the warm rasp of a voice repeating a well-worn fable, the deliberate stitching of everyday scraps into a quilt of meaning—the humble, necessary dealer in the raw material from which we build our worlds.