In traditional Acadian society, stories - and especially storytellers - were very popular. Folktales are stories that were told during family get-togethers, in lumber camps, or at public gatherings. Some of these folktales have been lost to us today since they were not written down. They were mainly passed down through oral tradition.

Since the 1940s, researchers such as Father Anselme Chiasson, Catherine Jolicoeur, Dominique Gauthier, Charlotte Cormier, Georges Arsenault, and Ronald Labelle have collected hundreds of Acadian songs and tales, gathering them in the four Altantic provinces and in Quebec. Many of these folk treasures are kept in historical archives. They can be seen by visiting the Centre d'études acadiennes at the Université de Moncton, the Centre de documentation et d'études madawaskayennes located on the Université de Moncton's Edmundston campus, and the Centre de documentation de la Société historique Nicolas-Denys located on the Université de Moncton's Shippagan campus.

Folktales are not as popular these days because of the pervasiveness of television and computers. However, the folktale tradition is still alive in Acadia, thanks to the work of the aforementioned researchers and to events such as the Nuits internationales du conte en Acadie.