Folktales, on the other hand, are suspended in time and space, referring to nowhere real and to no period locatable in history.  This suspension is seen in such common opening formulas as “Once upon a time in a distant kingdom” or “There was once a princess who lived in a land beyond the Seven Hills.”

Since folktales take place in a world of their own, in a “fairy-tale land,” so to speak, they are not as colored by specific cultures as are myths and legends.  They are therefore more focused on underlying psychological patterns common to all human experience than are the other genres of folk narrative.

One type of folktale in which this focus is clearly seen is the Marchen.  This was the genre of tales the Brothers Grimm collected in the early nineteenth century, and which is known in English as the fairy tale.  The Marchen is based on a specific type of plot that might be called the “theme of social transformation.”  Although this is the basic plot of Marchen, it may appear in other genres of folk narrative as well.

The theme of social transformation follows a strict pattern of events.  First, a dichotomy between two hierarchically distinct classes (rich and poor, powerful and powerless) is established—such as the poor girl and the parents of the lizard. 

Then, in the course of the narrative, the person of low status achieves high status through his or her personal initiative or special attributes—aided, of course, by magical intervention of some kind.  The final rise from low to high status is almost always achieved through marriage.

The theme of social transformation can be understood in psychological terms as an attempt to escape in fantasy from the harshness of the limiting, repressive system of everyday life, especially under the immutable conditions of a highly stratified, traditional society as it existed in Europe before the modern period, and as it always has existed in the Andes. 

The combination of personal initiative, which alone is seldom enough in a rigidly stratified traditional society; of marriage, which in many cases has provided a way up in such societies; and magic, the narrative vehicle for the free flight of fancy that makes all things possible, thus provides the ingredients for a plot in which the fantasy of personal escape can be tirelessly repeated in endless variations to the edification of generations of listeners.