Free The Witch-Herbalist of the Remote Town by Amos Tutuola

part of the premises of this mighty building and I met those savage children as they were eating ravenously, because they had been nearly dying of hunger. And without hesitation, I sat before them with the hope of eating from their food. But I had hardly put a bit of it in my mouth when I poured it out because it just tasted and smelled like cow-dung. This kind of food was not that of the people of the town.
    Having finished with the food, these children went back to the old man in the hall and I followed them with an empty stomach. But to my fear, these children started to shout greatly and were flattering the Old Man. Then I heard heavy noises as if thousands of heavy stones were dragging along the ground towards that place. The noises were so heavy that the ground of the premises began to shake. As I began to look sternly here and there with extreme fear, just to see what was making the heavy fearful noises, there appeared from a big corner of the premises a very huge woman. She was coming with full force to the hall. These wild children ran and hid themselves in another corner of the premises immediately she appeared. But fear did not allow me to follow them to the hiding corner. I simply stood firmly before the Old Man with extreme fear.
    To my fear again, when I fastened my eyes on this hideous stout wild woman, I saw that she had many breasts. Each was about sixty centimetres long and was thicker than a tube of thirty centimetres’ diameter. Though each was tapered as well, its nipple was more than ten centimetres in diameter. Each of her arms was very thick from the shoulder to theelbow and was about eighty centimetres in circumference. But the elbow was thinner than the shoulder and wrist. The muscle from each of the shoulders to each of the elbows was swelled out very high, and was as hard as a stone. From the neck to the waist was round and very huge. Her head was so big that it spread over her neck and shoulders. This head had an ugly shape like that of an image carved by an unskilled man.
    The hair on her head was not visible at all because the head-cover which she wore almost covered the head. This head-cover was beautifully woven with white, red and green minute beads. Each of her thighs was round and very thick. The ankles were also very big in a strange way; and also the fingers on both feet were many, they were not ten altogether like those of a man of the town. Each of the thighs was so strong that it made her very strong and firm when she walked or stood or sat down, or when she gripped something. She wore a kind of material like a wrapper round her waist to the ankles. This wrapper was made with coloured beads. Each of the beads was as big as a grain of maize. This wrapper was very beautiful indeed. But she did not cover her breasts with anything because they were long and thick.
    She wore very costly corals on both ankles and wrists, and many images of the antiquities which belonged to these wild jungles and wild savannah people were tied on every part of her wrapper of beads and on her head-cover of minute beads. But she was a merciless antagonist to all the townspeople and to all other wild people of the wild jungles who were not her race. In short, her stature and the whole of her appearance was very terrible for the eyes of the townspeople to see.
    I stood half-dead so I could not run away with the wild children immediately this LONG-BREASTED MOTHER OF THE MOUNTAIN appeared. I saw her as she walked heavily and firmly to the part where the blocks of stone were in rows in this large hall. She walked to the block which was next to the one on which the old father of the mountain sat. She saton that block and this meant she was next to him. But she did not attempt to greet him and the old father, too, did not greet her.
    Having rested for a few twinklings, she directed her fearful eyes on me. Then she began to look at me from head to feet as though she was sulky, and she did not talk to me. Now, her