[2] Meillet introduced Parry to Matija Murko, who had worked on oral epic traditions in Yugoslavia[5] and had made phonograph recordings of some performances.

They made thousands[6] of hours of recordings in remote mountain villages of illiterate farmers who sang epic songs of prodigious length from memory.

[2] The "jewel of the collection" is The Wedding Song of Smailagić Meho, by a poet named Avdo Međedović, "by far the most skillful and versatile performer whom Milman encountered".

[7] The musical part of his recordings made in Jugoslavia was later notated and published postumum in the fifties by Béla Bartók, commissioned by the Columbia University in 1942.

During his field excursions in the Balkans, Parry carried a gun with him, and he packed one in his luggage for a visit to California with his wife for the purpose of aiding his mother-in-law.

In the late afternoon of December 3, at the Palms Hotel in Los Angeles, Parry was dressing for a dinner with friends, while his wife was in another room.

[2] Various rumors circulated, including the ideas that Parry committed suicide because he was despondent over Harvard's failure to give him a permanent appointment, or that his wife killed him.

[2] Detailed examination of the evidence by classicist Steve Reece concurs with the contemporary official conclusion that Parry's death was accidental.

The Milman Parry collection of records and transcriptions of South Slavic heroic poetry is now in the Widener Library of Harvard University.

Havelock argues that the fixed expressions that Parry identified can be understood as mnemonic aids, which were vital to the well-being of society, given the importance of the information carried by the poetry.