They say the people could fly. Say that long ago in Africa, some of the people knew magic. And they would walk up on the air lik
e climbin up on a gate. And they flew like blackbirds over the fields. Black, shiny wings flappin against the blue up there. Then, many of the people were captured for Slavery. The ones that could fly shed their wings. They couldn’t take their wings across the water on the slave ships. Too crowded, don’t you know.
—“The People Could Fly,”
Virginia Hamilton
Which element of a folktale is included in this excerpt?
