50 W. THALBITZER and HJALMAR THUREN. 
a year after the records were taken. I brought home in all 66 wax- 
rolls, on which I had managed to obtain 96 songs and recitative 
poems, in addition to 36 tales and other specimens of the prose of 
the language. I refer here only to the portion of my material which 
is connected with the phonograph. 
On my return home a selection of these wax-rolls (about 25) 
were cast in bronze, the cost being defrayed by the Carlsberg Fund; 
the matrices, as also copies, have been deposited in the phonogram 
archives of the Danish Folklore Collection in the Royal Library at 
Copenhagen. 
Regarding our cooperation so much may be said. After we had 
each gone through the phonograms at home, Hj. Thuren taking the 
melodies and I the texts of the songs, we met during the following 
year about once a week to confer regarding our results on renewed 
playing of the records and especially to bring the words into their 
proper place in the tunes. Very precise observation was required 
to determine the form of each single word and the nature of each 
tone, as they sounded in the phonograph. Our conferences led to 
many mutual corrections and improvements, as sometimes the rhythm 
of the melodies showed how the syllables of the words should be 
connected or the single sounds in each syllable comprehended, and 
sometimes on the other hand the text led to an understanding of 
the quantitative value of a tone or of the rhythmic figures of the 
song. If the lines of the refrain had not been so distinctly reflected 
in the constantly recurring figures of the melody, I should hardly 
have been able, at least not so easily as was the case, to observe 
their forms in the text. Its endless variations on aja, Aja, aja, ia etc. 
seemed to me in the beginning quite accidental, meaningless as they 
are, and serving only to support the melody as substitute for the 
words. Special attention was necessary to determine how both these 
and the words of meaning in the text were arranged rhythmically 
among the tones. 
The phonograph is an excellent instrument for this purpose, 
more patient and more obedient than any living individual, and 
further more reliable. We may stop it and set it going again at any 
moment of the song we desire, and repeat this as often as we may 
wish without changing the natural form of the song. On the other 
hand, I consider the phonograph a less perfect medium than the 
living person when it comes to writing up the texts in a foreign 
language, especially texts which have been sung. More will be said 
about this in the next part of the work. 
