Sunday, September 27, 2020

De Mammelokker, Ghent, Belgium


This frieze above an old city jail shows a most puckish civic sense of humor: it shows an ancient legend about a prisoner sentenced to starve to death, who survived thanks to his daughter nursing him on her visits.  Its name is De Mammelokker ("the breast sucker"), and I can only imagine what an odd experience it must have been to walk beneath it as either jailer or prisoner.

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