Manneken Pis is a statue of a boy urinating in the center of Brussels. The 55.5 cm tall little guy on a plinth is placed at the corner of Stoofstraat and Eikstraat, not far from the Grote Markt.

It has become one of the most famous Belgian and Brussels monuments and a symbol / mascot of the city of Brussels . Besides the Manneken Pis of Brussels, there are similar statues in Geraardsbergen , Westmeerbeek , Broksele and Koksijde, but that of Brussels is the best known worldwide. It is a bronze creation by Hieronymus Duquesnoy from 1619.

There are many legends behind it:

A first tells how Brussels was attacked by enemies, who at one point pretended to surrender. In reality, however, they put gunpowder under the ramparts and wanted to blow up the city. A little boy named Juliaan would have seen the fuse in time and peed it out. In this way he saved the city from destruction.

A second legend tells that a little man relieved himself against a witch's door. The witch was furious and cursed the boy: to punish him, the boy would continue his indecent peeing forever and ever. A good man who had seen everything happen quickly replaced the boy with a statuette to free him from the eternal urination.

In a third story, the party was in Brussels. Parents lost their son in the large group of people. They searched for him for days, and after two days the father finally saw the boy again: the son was urinating. The father was so happy that he found his son that he had a fountain made in gratitude. On the fountain he placed the image of a boy urinating.

According to yet another saga, the young duke Godfrey III of Brabant fled his paternal palace when he was only six years old. He was strolling around Brussels with a few children of about the same age. Servants, looking for him, found him where the fountain now stands. As it stood then, it still stands today as a statue.

However, some believe that the statue was made in response to the Battle of Ransbeek near Vilvoorde. When Duke Godfrey III of Brabant was two years old, his father died and he came under guardianship. Two vassals and high knights at court, Walter van Mechelen and Gerard van Grimbergen of the Berthout family , then declared war on the young duke. The guardians of the young duke requested military assistance from the count of Flanders. He lent his aid, but his soldiers wanted to know who they were fighting for. Therefore, the little one was shown to the soldiers and then taken to the battlefield. There, the cradle was hung from a tree branch during the three-day battle. In the end, the insurgents were defeated. The young duke also had his part in the whole. Several times a day, he would stand up in his crib and then force his jet to fly over the side. In order not to forget this happy fact, the oak from which the cradle had hung was moved to Brussels and planted in a street in the center that was named Eikstraat. Right next to the tree, a statue of a child peeing has been erected.

A more likely story is that Manneken Pis was made as a tribute to the many tanneries that were located in the vicinity of the Stoofstraat, where urine was used to process the leather. The ammonia in the urine was a raw material for tailors and tanners in the Middle Ages, and is said to make the leather more supple.