Tradition / Region: Madagascar Mythology
Alternative names: Itrìmobé
Category: Forest Dweller
The Myth
Itrimobe is a gigantic man-eating monster from Malagasy folklore, described as a terrifying creature that is partly human and partly beast. He possesses immense strength, an animal-like hunger for human flesh, and a long razor-sharp tail capable of cutting through forests and dense thickets. He lives isolated from ordinary people, guarding his land and crops like a predatory giant lurking beyond civilization.
The monster appears in the tale of the three sisters Ramatoa, Raivo, and Ifara. Of the sisters, the youngest, Ifara, is the most beautiful. Her beauty makes the older sisters deeply jealous, especially after strangers repeatedly declare that Ifara is prettier than either of them.
Consumed by envy, the sisters lead Ifara toward the lands belonging to Itrimobe. Pretending innocence, they trick her into gathering the monster’s vegetables while they secretly protect themselves. Itrimobe catches Ifara stealing from his fields and declares that he will devour her. Terrified, Ifara begs instead to become his wife.
Itrimobe agrees, but only because he intends to fatten her before eating her later.
The monster keeps Ifara imprisoned in his house beneath heavy mats while he hunts through the countryside searching for food to make her plump. Eventually, when the time approaches for him to kill and consume her, a magical mouse secretly helps Ifara escape. Before fleeing southward, she takes several enchanted objects: an egg, a broom, a small cane, and a smooth stone.
When Itrimobe discovers the escape, he sniffs the air in every direction until he catches her scent and begins pursuing her with monstrous speed. Each time he nearly catches her, Ifara throws down one of the magical objects. The broom becomes a dense thorny thicket, the egg transforms into a vast lake, and the cane grows into an enormous forest. Yet Itrimobe hacks through every obstacle with his enormous bladed tail.
Finally, Ifara throws down the stone, which becomes a towering precipice impossible to cross. Itrimobe desperately tries to cut through the cliff, but his tail becomes blunt and useless. Unable to climb, he begs Ifara to pull him upward with a rope. She agrees only after convincing him to plant his spear into the ground below.
As Itrimobe climbs, he reveals he still intends to seize her. Ifara immediately lets go of the rope. The monster falls onto his own spear and is impaled to death.
In Malagasy folklore, Itrimobe represents the archetypal devouring ogre: gigantic, cunning, violent, and endlessly hungry. Yet despite his terrifying power, he is ultimately defeated through intelligence, patience, and magical assistance rather than force.
Sources
Sibree, J. (1896). Madagascar before the conquest: The island, the country, and the people, with chapters on travel and topography, folk-lore, strange customs and superstitions, the animal life of the island, and mission work and progress among the inhabitants. New York: Macmillan; London: T. F. Unwin.