To the lover of Flemish paintings Breughel is one of the most characteristic and charming of them all. His art is distinctively Flemish, in subject, treatment and inspiration. Somewhat influenced perhaps by Jerome Bosch, a Brabant painter of the previous century renowned for his weird and eccentric conceptions, Breughel is never conventional. His work is that of a humourist, a satirist who sees the follies of the world but laughs at them. His pictures are admirable in their colouring, execution and the grouping of the figures, and they are especially interesting in their vivid portrayal of the every-day Flemish life of the times in which he lived.
The visitor to Antwerp cannot fail to observe the images of the Virgin placed at the corners of nearly every street in the older quarter of the city. These are said to be due to the Long Wapper, a somewhat humorous but none the less grim and terrifying fiend who was wont, many centuries ago, to play weird pranks upon the good people of Antwerp after nightfall. He used to lie in wait for wayfarers upon deserted by-streets in the uncanny hours between midnight and dawn. Pouncing upon his terrified victims, he would carry them off, sometimes never to return. Now and then he assumed the form of a lost baby, to which, being found by some charitable mother, the breast was given. Presently the good woman discovered to her horror that the foundling was swelling and becoming heavy, and when she put it down the Wapper assumed his own shape and ran off shrieking. At times he peered into church windows and howled and gibbered at the worshippers, and afterwards frightened them terribly as they went homeward, or, stretching his body to an incredible length, he peered into the upper windows of people’s houses. Men feared to speak evil of the Long Wapper, for something terrible was certain to happen to those who did. At last it was found that he would never pass an image of the Virgin, and that is why so many were erected that finally the evil fiend had no more streets left in which to play his mad pranks and left Antwerp for the lonely moors and dunes along the seacoast where he is still said to be seen.
The place most frequented by the Long Wapper was a little stream which came to be called the Wappersrui in consequence, and a bridge across it the Wappersbrucke. Here he often strode out of the water with his long thin legs extending far down into its dark depths like two black stilts. Once he had reached the embankment he shrank instantly to a diminutive size—usually taking the form of a schoolboy. These first appearances were generally between daylight and dark, when the twilight made it difficult to distinguish faces clearly, and he always took the place of some boy who happened to be absent. A favourite game of the boys, who were then returning from school, was called shove-hat. In this game one boy tossed his hat on the ground and the others shoved and kicked it about with their feet while its owner sought to regain it. When it came the turn of the Long Wapper to throw down his hat the first one to give it a kick broke his wooden shoe to pieces and fractured his toes, for the hat proved to be a heavy iron pot. Then the street echoed with a jeering “Ha, ha, ha!” but the Wapper had disappeared.
His pranks upon grown-up people were apt to be far more serious in their consequences than those just described. Often he paused at some tavern door and joined the party seated there in a game of cards, which invariably resulted in a violent quarrel in the course of which one or more of the players was usually killed. On another occasion he appeared in broad daylight selling mussels. Encountering four women sitting outside their door at work he opened a mussel and offered it to one of them. She tasted it, but it turned into dirt in her mouth. Apologising, he opened another, which all could see was a sound, fine mussel, and offered it to another of the women. No sooner was it in her mouth than it turned into a huge spider. The women thereupon set upon him, but he defended himself so rudely that two of them were nearly killed, when he suddenly vanished, leaving only an echo of wild laughter.
In the country to the east of Antwerp there are many quaint legends still told at the peasants’ firesides on stormy winter nights about the Kaboutermannekens who in ancient times frequented that neighbourhood. Near the village of Gelrode there is a small hill on the sides of which are many little caves which were formerly the abode of these fairies, the hill being called the Kabouterberg to this day in consequence. There is a similar hill, called Kaboutermannekensberg, between Turnhout and Casterle. They were also called Red Caps or Klabbers, and were usually clad in red from head to foot, and often had green hands and faces, according to those who were so fortunate as to see them. These little gnomes or elves seem to have resembled their kind as reported in the folk-lore of other northern countries, being the willing and loyal slaves of those who treated them kindly, and the bitter, and sometimes dangerous, enemies of those who misused them.
Still another local sprite—this time a spirit of evil resembling in some respects the Long Wapper—was known as Kludde. This fiend was often met with after dark in many parts of Flanders, and even in Brabant. At times Kludde would appear to the peasants as the dusk of twilight was deepening into the intense darkness of night on the Flemish plains, in the guise of an old, half-starved horse. If a farmer or stable-boy mistook him for one of his own horses and mounted on Kludde he instantly rushed off at an incredible speed until he came to some water into which he pitched his terrified rider headlong. This accomplished to his satisfaction he vanished, crying “Kludde, Kludde!” as he went away, whence came his name.
[CHAPTER XIX]
THREE CENTURIES OF ANTWERP PRINTERS
