The Beggars or The Cripples is an oil-on-panel by the Netherlandish Renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder, painted in 1568.

Attempts have been made to interpret the picture of five disabled people and a beggar-woman as an allusion to a historical event: the badger's tails, or foxes' tails, on their clothes might refer to the Gueux, a rebel party formed against the government of Philip II of Spain and Granvelle; but these also occur in Bruegel's The Fight Between Carnival and Lent in Vienna, dated 1559.

One is in Flemish, and in a very fragmentary state;[2] the other is in Latin and records the admiration some humanist felt for Bruegel, whose art surpasses Nature itself.

[3] The painting dates from the end of Bruegel's career, when he showed a keener interest in the natural world.

Modern eyes may be inclined to conclude that Brugel intended to invoke sympathy for the plight of the disabled figures, but from a historical perspective this is unlikely.