Written literature has evolved over a long period to an entity separate from oral tradition. Written literature aspired to perpetuation, to the creation of written "monuments." This aspiration caused authors to find the means of multiplying authentic versions so that they could popularize their "original" form unchanged. On the other hand, oral tradition involved creative changes with each retelling. Folktale, legend, and fairy tale are considered to be the three major genres of folklore. At times it is difficult to differentiate between what is considered fairy tale and what is considered folktale. The majority of scholars of the fairy tale--whether psychologically, sociologically, or literarily oriented--all agree that the fairy tale as a narrative genre centers on human kind and its inner states. The fairy tale reflects the pains of growing up, the process of finding out about the objective world and coming to terms with it, learning to accept difficult challenges, and having faith in happy outcomes. In spite of the vagueness and considerable universality of a tale, it is possible to associate a specific version of a fairy tale with a particular culture or community. Narrators consciously reflect the traditional beliefs, customs, and values of their own community in their narratives. In seeking to study the collective versus the individual nature of reader response, the Turko-Danish Fairytale Project takes the fairytale as its point of departure, with the belief that if there are any universal or collective aesthetic values, they can most easily be traced in the reader's response to fairy tales. (HTH)