In oral cultures,''story'' might connote the village historian or tribal sage,the person responsible for interpreting the outside world to kindred with lesser vision,the personal repository of a culture's myth and William Link, creators of the police drama Columbo,gave the title '' The Storyteller'' to their introspective drama about the crisis of conscience faced by a television scriptwriter whose work,aired one evening on network television,portrayed several acts of arson. In the story, the show is seen by a youth who immediately after viewing leaves his home to try to burn down his school.The youth dies of smoke inhalation in the fire.