In a parsley bed, a farmer found a red cabbage that was so big it could not fit in a cauldron.
One day he saved an old woman from drowning in the Scheldt river, and she gave him the ability to make himself big or small.
He would disguise himself as a child to receive breastmilk to drink, would vex drunkards, and would cheat children in games.
His bleating laughter frightened the general public, who began to call him “water devil”.
It is Lange Wapper, as big as a house, who warns, "If you get drunk again, I will break your neck!
[5] Another story is about Stans van 't Gansken, a wheedling woman, who hides near a place in Antwerp where mothers abandon their newborn babies.
Stans accosts these women and threatens that if they do not give her a large amount of hush money, she will tell everybody else that they abandoned their children.
Meanwhile, Lange Wapper hides in the woman's house and uses his shapeshifting ability to assume her form.