This October, the National Storytelling Festival will celebrate its 20th year, bringing more than 80 storytellers — including one from Maine — to Jonesborough, Tenn.

From Oct. 2 to 4, thousands of people will flock to the small northeast Tennessee community to hear folk and fairy tales from many cultures, personal narratives, historical accounts, tall tales and updated classics.

Listeners will choose from special programs for families and children, two ghost-story concerts and tellings of sacred tales. The festival’s 1,001 stories will cover the globe and express the richness of America’s melting pot with Indian myths, cowboy poetry, Br’er Rabbit stories, Appalachian Jack tales, Cajun stories and true accounts of growing up in America.

All of this year’s performers, including Jackson Gillman of Mount Desert, have told stories at previous festivals. Other tellers include America’s patriarch of traditional storytelling, Ray Hicks, and Grand Ole Opry star Jerry Clower, the festival’s first teller.

For the first time, the National Association for the Preservation and Perpetuation of Storytelling, the event’s sponsor, will limit attendance, which is expected to top the record turnouts of 6,500 in 1990 and 1991. NAPPS says the reason for the limit is to make sure all festival-goers are well served.

Registration for the festival will begin Thursday, Oct. 1. The festival will begin at 10 a.m. Friday, Oct. 2, and will continue through 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 4.

Several combinations of weekend, single-day and special-event tickets are available. Groups of 15 or more are eligible for discounts when they preregister with NAPPS.

For more information and to preregister, call the festival hot line at 1-800-952-8392.

NAPPS publishes two periodicals, the quarterly Storytelling Magazine and the Yarnspinner, a how-to newsletter published eight times a year. It also produces the National Directory of Storytelling. For more information, write NAPPS, P.O. Box 309, Jonesborough, Tenn. 37659.