Those of us who have worked on this project feel particularly honored because we are well aware that the age of folklore telling is vanishing and that the repositories of that age old knowledge-our Tibetan elders-are fast leaving us. We understand the reasons for the accelerating， seemingly unstoppable alterations to our traditional society that once placed elders firmly in the center of our world. The pre-electrified world was a time when children gathered expectantly around elders on a warm sleeping platform in the evening to listen to tales， and a time when villagers felt very close to each other， freely visiting each other's homes to exchange the latest news， tell， and listen to folklore.This has all changed as it has in much of the world as modernity in the form of electricity， radios， television， DVD/ VCD players， mobile phones， and so on arrive sin once remote areas. This has now deprived our elders of an audience for their folklore and memories of monsters， witches， demons， demonesses， and amazing worlds colored by imaginative genius. When elders are not asked to tell folklore， they do not tell it， and when they do not tell， they tend to forget， and the next generation loses access to knowledge that was once central to life. Furthermore， the poetics of Tibetan oral literature and archaisms that characterize these traditions are rapidly moving out of the consciousness of young Tibetan people as they are replaced by the offerings of globalized media.
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