I have not yet seen any correspondance between HHF and Margorie Porter. (Remember, I have not had a chance to spend time at Middlebury looking through the correspondence.) I do recognize the name though.

What would be interesting to know is how these collectors differed in their methods of collecting.

Phillips Barry taught my grandmother very strict rules for collecting ballads: transcribing exactly as the singer had sung--no changing of words, if the words sounded strange, and leaving the tune just as it was recorded. This was a real task. My mother did some of the transcriptions in the beginning.

No one in the Flanders collecting group was involved in performing. That was left to the singers. When my grandmother delivered a lecture, she brought along her singer-informants or their tapes, to illustrate the songs. Thus she was sharing what she had found in the first place.

Nancy-Jean