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For most of human history few people knew how to read. Most people were busy trying to survive and didn't have the time to learn and besides that writing materials were expensive. Even in the 19th century children used the slate for most writing practice because paper was so precious. And of course people relied on memory including rhymes such as "Thirty days hath September.." to remember things. Storytelling was something done on cold winter nights when there wasn't much else that could be done, and of course the wandering storyteller also served as a source of news about what was going on in the outer world. Monks were some of the few people who could read (and even some monks were illiterate). There is a story of a book that some monks used as kindling for their cook fire. It turned out to be a copy of the scriptures they were burning, but since they couldn't read they didn't know that til most of the copy had been used. Probably one reason people didn't read books alone for so long was that few people in the group could read.
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