Thinking about stories

I was thinking about the stories in my own life and was reminded of my sister. She's always telling stories or jokes, and you can always tell when she's about to start. She ALWAYS starts by saying very definitively, "So." Her stories/jokes follow this same format: "So, I heard" or "So, let me tell you" or "So, she said..." It's really funny. We make fun of her regularly, but it reminds me of the Anglo-Saxon griot tradition for starting a story with the word "Hwaet" which is usually translated as "so" but more closely means "shut up and listen to me." :-) That is, effectively, what my sister says when she begins a story with "So."