Part musicologist, part just plain curious, Milman Parry embarked on a quest to document and record the musical traditions of South Slavic song in the 1930s. Along the way, he came up with a provocative thesis: The epic tradition of storytelling and narrative present in the Iliad and Odyssey were not originally literary in nature, but rather part of the tradition of an archaic Greek oral tradition. After he passed away in 1935, his rather impressive collection found its way to Harvard University. Over the past few years, the staff at the Widener Library at Harvard have worked to place many of his field recordings and notes online, and their work has culminated in this fine website. Visitors to the site will want to listen to a few of these songs, and then perhaps also read some of the essays that explain the importance of his work, and that of his colleague, Albert B. Lord.