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Bill Mayhew stood before a standing-room-only crowd, recounting a tale of "Aunt Hepatia," a woman who put the liver-strengthening herb Hepatica in everything she cooked, "whether it needed it or not."

"She lived to be 103," Mayhew explained to the audience, "And when she died they had to take her liver out and beat it with a stick."

The anecdote isn't true, but it's a fitting metaphor for the craft of storytelling, which showed it too was alive and kicking Saturday night at the Kensington Row Bookshop. Six storytellers gathered to regale about 50 listeners with tales of everything from Celtic heroes to personal adventure as part of the national Tellebration, an international celebration of storytelling that takes place annually the first Saturday before Thanksgiving.

Ellouise Schoettler, one of the members of the D.C. area storytelling group Voices in the Glen who told stories Saturday, said though the group tells stories all over the area all the time, Tellebration is "sharing in something bigger than yourself."

Many of the tellers and many in the audience were librarians, people who are by nature consumed by stories. But Marjorie Holman of Potomac and her friend Andi Sacks of Aspen Hill came as "drop ins" after Holman heard of the event at a previous storytelling event at the bookstore.

Holman said the personal stories were her favorites, and mentioned Schoettler and Mayhew as two of her favorite tellers.

Mayhew, though he has told an exhaustive adaptation of "The Odyssey" in his career, kept tales short and sweet on Saturday. He attributed that to his career as an elementary school librarian, where he would reward children with a short story at the end of a library session if they completed their assignments in time.

"They were short but they really got you going," said Sacks of Mayhew's stories. "He really owned them."

Mayhew interacted with the crowd too, interrupting his own tales to react to the audience. Schoettler said it's that kind of interaction between the audience and the teller that makes the craft great.

"It's a very personal relationship, that's different from stage with the fourth wall," Schoettler said. "I think that's what you could feel here, was the full room, the energy bouncing back and forth."

Sacks said the setting, surrounded by shelves of books, contributed to the enjoyment of the event.

"You're listening to stories while surrounded by stories," Sack said.

Ralph and Margaret Chatham took that inspiration for their performance, which were literary recitations, not off the cuff like some of the others.

"We just decided we're in a bookstore, we're going to do book stories," Margaret Chatham said.

Jane Dorfman, the president of Voices in the Glen, wove a tale of Celtic hero Finn McCool, and said the opportunity to tell to an adult audience was a nice change of pace from her duties telling stories to children as a librarian. With adults, she can take longer and doesn't have to "hammer it home" because adult life experience allows them to relate to more complex themes.

"That's a real treat," Dorfman said. "When you're full like this you really get a lot of energy coming from the crowd."

Dorfman said in spite of the pace of modern life, storytelling has shown it remains relevant.

"Look at how popular things are like the redneck comedy tour, things like that. That's really story telling," Dorfman said.

To find her material, Dorfman said she has to do "a lot of reading and a lot of looking."

"But then one hits you and you go, ‘Oh, I really love this story,' and then it plays just like a movie in your head."