[1] A specialist in the field of folklore,[2] his crowning achievement was his Le Conte populaire français [fr], a catalog of folktales found in France and French-speaking areas, structured and modeled on the Aarne-Thompson classification system.
[3] After dabbling in his interest into local flora (Étude sur la Flore nivernaise, published 1930), he dedicated himself to transcribing and index-carding collected folktales in the manuscripts left by Achille Millien, the Nivernais folklorist.
[2] Between 1933 and 1936 he launched his own field study with the inhabitants of Nièvre, while teaching at Saint-Léger-des-Vignes, then Montsauche and Vauzelles,[citation needed] then moving to the Paris area.
During World War II, he was ranked Chef de bataillon (major), fighting battles in Saarland and Ardennes, taken prisoner in 1940, and liberated in 1941.
[1] Paul Delarue headed the folklore committee at the Ligue de l'enseignement (1946-1953) and subsequently at the Musée national des Arts et Traditions Populaires.