"De Mammelokker"
After the people of Ghent had revolted against their king for the umpteenth time, the oppressor demanded that at least one of the chiefs of the city would die a terrible death. The king seemed not satisfied with any other punishment than death by starvation for one particular chief in the city-jail. The citizens themselves who reigned in the city, had to decide who would be the one to die.
The sheriff was an old, wise and brave man. "My legs won’t support me much longer", he said. "You, my friends, have a nice future to look forward to, I haven’t. Let me die for you and for our city. My wife who I loved is in heaven. Because I hope to see her again with God’s mercy. I’m not afraid of departing from this life.
Many young fellows were too proud to victimise the elderly man for them, and they demanded the people to take their lives. But the sheriff insisted and finally his decision was brought to the king’s knowledge. In all districts of the city people spoke with praise about the brave man, who had himself locked up for the rest of his days, without any complaint. He would be tortured by hunger for the rest of his life.
When the sheriff was alone in the dungeon and certain that nobody could notice anything, he cried bitterly. It wasn’t his own destiny he was crying for ; he was so sad because he would never see the child of his only daughter again, that was only a few weeks old.
The king expected that an old man like the sheriff was wouldn’t live very long without any food. But days and weeks passed by and the sheriff stayed alive.
Then an investigation was commanded. The only that had contact with the prisoner, was the convict’s father. She often came to talk to him through the bars of the jail. Every time she was body-searched, but they never found any food on her. So it seemed impossible that she brought him food.
They decided to spy on them while they were talking to each other. And then they the touching spectacle, which explained the miraculous survival of the sheriff. Immediately the daughter breast-fed her old father with her nursing bosom, which also breast-fed her little baby.
The findings of the watchers were instantly announced to the king. The sovereign, moved by such a heroic child’s love released the condemned man and ordered to put a memorial sculpture above the gate of the city-prison ; this memorial, which one can still see, reminds the inhabitants of Ghent of "De mammelokker."