So I've got this sentence:
日本【にほん】の古【ふる】くから言【い】い伝【つた】われている話【はな】しを昔話【むかしばなし】と言【い】います。

Now 昔話【むかしばなし】 is supposed to be a noun, and を should be followed by a verb,
but why is を followed by a noun in this case?
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question
word-choice
Why is wo followed by a noun?
It all depends on what arguments the verb takes. The verb in your sentence is
いう ( _iu_ ) and it can be used in this pattern.

> ＡをＢという ( _A wo B to iu_ )  
>  to call A B

There aren't many verbs that take this kind of と (not the kind that means
"with") as an argument.
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> and wo should be followed by a verb

In general, particles don't _need to_ be followed by anything; they are
postpositions, so they restrict what _precedes_ them. [を]{wo} should be
_preceded_ by a noun, and its _purpose_ is to mark the direct object in some
clause. However, an action could have many "participants", so we can't really
say that any specific one of them has to come right before the verb in the
general case. (Of course, certain orders are preferred idiomatically.)

In your example, [と]{to} is another particle. The verb is
[言]{i}[い]{i}[ま]{ma}[す]{su}, the formal equivalent of [言]{i}[う]{u}. The core
meaning is "speak", but it's also used to talk about naming or calling things.
For that usage, the と-participant is the name being used, and the
を-participant is the thing that receives that name. (If present, a
[が]{ga}-participant would be the person applying that name.)

This と is different from the one that means "and" (as a conjunction). It is
used for quoting things, either literally (as speech or text) or [more
abstractly](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/68125). Only a few
verbs use it.
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answer