The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales

Little Daughter’s father tells her never to leave their house and go into the forest alone, but when her father leaves, Little Daughter looks through the gate of the fence around the house and spies a yellow flower. She picks it, and she picks more flowers until she's far away from her cabin and face-to-face with a wolf.

The wolf asks her to sing a sweet song, and Little Daughter obliges him. As she sings, she sneakily tiptoes back to the gate. The wolf thinks she’s moving but isn't sure. He keeps asking her if she moved, and she keeps saying no until she’s securely back behind the gate.

Manuel’s father is dead, and his mother doesn’t have much money. To make her rich, Manuel goes to the palace to solve the princess’s riddle. He also intends to give the princess a riddle to solve first. His mother thinks it’s a bad idea. If a person gets the riddle wrong, the princess has them beheaded. So far, 25 men have died due to their failure to solve the riddle. Manuel doesn’t care: He’s going.

For his journey, his mother makes him three poisonous cakes and three loaves of bread. The poisoned cakes are for Manuel and the bread is for his donkey, Paul, but Manuel gives the cakes to Paul as a reward for providing him with a smooth ride. The donkey dies, the three vultures who pick at the donkey’s insides die, and the seven robbers who buy the three dead vultures from Paul die.

The series of deaths gives Manuel his riddle: “The cake kills Paul, / Paul kills three, / And three kill seven” (67). After three minutes of thinking about the riddle, the princess gives up. Before the king gives Paul his wealth, he gives him three rabbits that he must free in the mountains. After 30 days, he must retrieve the rabbits, and they must be plump. An old witch gives Manuel a whistle. When he blows it, the rabbits will return.

The king tells his daughter to disguise herself, go to the mountains, and give Manuel money for one of the rabbits. She asks Manuel to sell her the spotted rabbit, but he refuses. Instead, he gives it to her for her gold heart hanging around her neck. After she leaves, he blows his whistle, and the rabbit returns.

The queen goes to Manuel, and he refuses to sell her the rabbit for money, but he gives it to her for her bracelet that didn’t cost her a penny. When the queen leaves, Manuel blows his whistle, and the rabbit returns.

The king disguises himself as a poor shepherd. Carrying an iron cage, the king purchases one of the rabbits, not with money, but with his ring. The king tells Manuel that his name is on it and that he shouldn’t wear it in public because it’ll hurt the king’s image. Manuel dismisses the king’s instructions about the ring, but when he blows the whistle, only two rabbits come. The old witch tells him not to worry, and, nearing the palace, he blows the whistle, and the third rabbit comes, yet the rabbit isn’t big and healthy.

The king wants to know what’s wrong with the emaciated rabbit, and Manuel lies: It got sick. The king calls Manuel a liar and orders him to fill a sack with lies. In filling the sack, Manuel tells what happened with the princess and the queen. They call him a liar, but before Manuel can explain how he secured the king’s ring, the king ends the charade so no one will know what happened. Manuel receives his fortune, and he and his mother live happily.

After dinner, Papa John tells his son, Jake, to go to Missus’s house and get her fastest horse. Jake obeys, and his father asks how he knows which horse is the fastest. Jake answers: It’s the fastest because he returned before he left. His father orders him to carry a heavy pumpkin seed into a field, dig a hole, put the pumpkin seed in the hole, and then ride off without looking back. Jake looks back and sees the pumpkin seeds growing vines. Evading the fast-growing vines and supersized pumpkins, Jake climbs through the leaves and back to his dad.

Papa John was once a turnip grower. He tells Jake about the time he grew a gigantic turnip. Cows slept under it, and it took him half a year to build a fence around it. To cook it, he hired 100 people to make a clay pot as big and as high as the turnip. Boiling the turnip took a year, but it tasted delicious, and Jake, unbeknownst to him, ate the last piece for dinner.

Big John kills Little John’s horse because it won’t stop crying. On his feet and seeking refuge from the cold, Little John asks a woman if he can come inside her home. The woman refuses to let him in because her husband is gone.

When the husband returns, he orders his wife to let Little John in, and they sit down to eat. Little John stomps his feet on the horsehide he made from his dead horse. The horsehide tells him there’s food and wine inside the sideboard. The man offers to buy Little John’s horsehide, and he sells it to him for two bags of money. Asking for the horsehide back, Little John tells the man to look in the barrel. The man does and finds the Devil. He gives Little John double the initial amount to remove the Devil and the barrel.

At home, Little John borrows a basket from Big John to measure his money. He sends the basket back with two silver coins still inside. Big John asks what Little John was measuring, and Little John says he was counting the money he got from the horse Big John killed—three baskets worth. Big John is shocked Little John got so much money for his weak horse—he thinks he could get more for his two strong horses, so he kills them and tries to sell their horsehides, but there are no buyers.

Big John threatens to kill Little John but murders Little John’s grandmother instead and then wheels her to the local store and leaves her. Little John goes to the store and blames his grandmother’s death on the storekeeper, who gives Little John money to hush up the death and bury his grandmother. Little John tells Big John about what happened, and Big John kills his own grandmother, but no one wants to buy her.

Irritated, Big John plans to kill Little John. He puts Little John in a sack and goes to church to pardon his past sins and his impending murder. A herdsman arrives and asks Little John why he’s in a sack, and Little John says it’s because he won’t marry the king’s daughter because he can’t eat with a knife and fork. The herdsman knows how to use a fork and knife, so he offers to marry the king’s daughter and trades places with Little John. The herdsman is in the sack, and Big John drops the lighter sack into the water and sees Little John with cows and sporting a new coat.

Little John tells Big John what’s happening: Big John’s foul treatment of Little John inevitably becomes favorable. Big John tells Little John to put him in a sack and drop him in the sea. Little John rows out far and throws him into the water. Little John goes on to live a peaceful, good life.

According to legend, Wiley’s father fell off a ferry, and a Hairy Man captured him. Wiley lives with his mother and some dogs, and his mother thinks the Hairy Man might capture her son if he’s not careful.

In the swamp, Wiley cuts poles for a hen roost, and his hunting dogs chase a wild pig, leaving Wiley alone. Holding a sack, the Hairy Man appears. When Wiley climbs up a tree, the Hairy Man tries to chop it down with an ax, but Wiley orders the wood chips to return to the tree.

Remembering his mother’s advice, Wiley tells the Hairy Man he’ll pray and then calls for his hunting dogs. The Hairy Man says he used the wild pig to distract them, but the dogs are on their way. The Hairy Man then offers to teach Wiley to conjure, or use magic, if he comes down. Wiley says he can learn how to conjure from his mother, so the frustrated Hairy Man leaves, and Wiley returns to his mother. She tells Wiley not to climb a tree next time, but to challenge the Hairy Man. Wiley meets the Hairy Man again and coaxes him into turning himself into a giraffe, an alligator, and a possum. Wiley grabs the Hairy Man while he is in possum form, puts him in the sack, and throws him into the river.

The Hairy Man turns himself into the wind and escapes the sack. He makes various things disappear, like Wiley’s shirt and all the rope in the land. Wiley tells his mother what happened, and his mom takes over. She orders Wiley to get the baby pig and then tells him to hide in the hayloft.

The Hairy Man arrives, and he and Wiley’s mother battle. He threatens to bite her; she threatens to bite him back. He threatens to ruin her crops and animals, and she says that’s too cruel, even for the Hairy Man. She offers to give the Hairy Man her baby if he’ll leave, and the Hairy Man agrees. Her “baby” is the baby pig. Wiley and his mom fooled the Hairy Man three times, so he won’t bother them anymore.