Lange Wapper is a legend about a giant who irritates or provokes people. The story is well known in Antwerp. The legend was also told in other Flemish cities.

Legend

The legend started in the 16th century. Lange Wapper likes to live near the sea, near rivers or canals. He can make himself so tall that he can move from one town to another with a single giant leap.


Lange Wapper uses tricks to approach women to get their breast milk. He teases drunks, cheats while playing with children and laughs like the devil.

In Flemish culture

• A planned but delayed controversial new bridge in Antwerp would have been called the Lange Wapper bridge.
• Lange Wapper has a statue in front of Het Steen
  Het Steen
  Het Steen is medieval fortress in the old city centre of Antwerp, Belgium, one of Europe's biggest ports. Built after the Viking incursions in the early Middle Ages as the first stone fortress of Antwerp, Het Steen is Antwerp's oldest building and used to be its oldest urban centre.Previously known...
  
   in Antwerp.
• The giant appears in two books of the comic strip Spike and Suzy
  Spike and Suzy
  Spike and Suzy, the British title for Suske en Wiske in Dutch, is a comics series created by the Belgian comics author Willy Vandersteen. The strip is known as Bob et Bobette in French and Willy and Wanda in the U.S. It was first published in De Nieuwe Standaard in 1945 and soon became popular...
  
  .