Legends are powerful

At first I thought the name of the statue which adorns postcards, corkscrews, and tshifts in all souvineer shops was Manic in Peace, and it was some sort of play on words and the state of the world. However, the name is Mannekn Pis it really means little man pee. in an ols Belgium dialect.

                                                          

There are many, many stories as to why there is a small statue of a boy peeing into a fountain in the Grand-Place in Brussels. Perhaps this is why so many people go to see it, as it’s not very impressive. In the Museum de la Ville, which is a lot about the history of Brussels has a whole room of Mannekin Pis and all of the costumes counties and organizations have dressed him in-the US dressed him as Elvis, Japan did a traditional kimono and sandals, there is an astronaut one. All of the costumes have a little hole so the Manneken Pis can pee. I loved this room-it sort of reminded me of it’s a small world in Disney.Walking into the room there is a video playing from the 80s where they taped tourists from all over the world viewing the boy, and their reactions are all pretty much “why did we spend our time to come see this?”

No one really knows when the statue was built, why it was put in the Grand-Place, or if the statue is actually the original. Consensus is that statue was put up sometime in the 17TH century and the various stories as to why include a witch putting a hex on a little boy who was peeing to the baby of a kind peeing on invading troops. It was stolen several times and there are replicas.

Legends are powerful, and fun.