As art, any tale reflects the social order and worldview of those who create it and makes a statement about their goals for telling it. The distinction between a fairy tale and another kind of story, however, lies in the cultural significance of the fairy tale as a form of folklore. In his essay “The Four Functions of Folklore,” William Bascom indicates that those functions are amusement, validation of culture, education, and enforcement of cultural mores; folklore is “a means of applying social pressure and exercising social control” (346). Fairy tales reflect society’s perception of itself and the desires of the portion of society in which the fairy tale originated. Many fairy tales reinforce stereotypes, as well, providing dire predictions of doom for straying from the prescribed path, particularly for personal gain. Zipes argues that, as folk tales moved from oral to literary at the end of the 17th century, they were appropriated: these “products of the imagination are set in a socio-economic context and are used ultimately to impose limitations on the imagination of the producers and receivers” (9). This presumes that there was a change in folk tales which resulted in their being used to perpetrate the value system of the upper class upon the peasantry. This seems like a very difficult assumption to prove, given that the majority of folk tales, in all their multiplicity of forms, reinforce long-standing cultural beliefs; additionally, Zipes implies that folk tales belong to only a particular segment of society, rather than being present in every aspect of a society. An alternative conclusion to draw from his evidence is that telling fairy tales has always had a purpose, and the only things that change are the social norms and those telling the stories.