1 THE DIPLOMATIC BAG from the Royal Albanian Legation in Washington, D.C., arrived on a gloomy winter’s day, of the kind that nature bestows with particular prodigality on the capital cities of small and backward states. It contained visa applications from two Irishmen settled in New York, together with a covering note, which described the applicants first as “folklorists,” then as "alleged folklorists.” Everything else about them was rather sketchy. It seemed they knew a little Albanian, that they were intending to travel the country in search of ancient Albanian heroic songs, and that they would bring a quantity of filing cards and maps relating mainly to the Northern Zone, the area where they proposed to base themselves. In addition, and this was the most amazing thing, they would be bringing with them instruments that recorded voice and sound — weird, previously unheard-of contraptions that were called tape recorders and that, as the legation officials explained, had only just been invented and made available.
