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Welcome to Stories Podcast.
I'm your host, Amanda Weldon.
Today's story is a throwback episode.
Tune in to hear one of our classic stories from the archive that you might have missed the first time around.
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Enjoy the episode!
The Boy Who Loved Cheese Too Much.
Klaas van Bommel was a Dutch boy, and once upon a time he lived on a dairy farm with his family.
He was a stout lad, with rosy cheeks and a thick middle.
His hair was an orange somewhere between carrots and sweet potatoes.
It was snipped flat level under his ears, mostly because his mother cut it by putting a bowl on his head and trimming whatever hairs peeked out, nipping them like cats with garden mice.
Oftentimes, after dinner, his mother was known to wail that Kloss's stomach had no bottom.
He was like a well that swallowed anything and everything and then just echoed for more.
He ate sausages and stroopwafels.
He ate bitterballen and herring.
He ate everything his mother put in front of him and most of what she hid in the cupboards.
But his favorite?
His favorite was cheese.
Being a dairy farm, there was never a shortage.
Hard bitter cheese and soft milky cheese.
Filmy, sliced cheese and crumbly blocked cheese, big wheels of cheese all sealed up in wax and stinky cheese with flavor so thick you could see it floating in the air.
Kloss ate it all, and when his parents tried to control his portions he would steal the cheese from his sister's plates and eat that too.
To fight his ferocious appetite.
Kloss's parents then thought they could just keep the cheese hidden.
They did not account for Kloss's heightened cheese-scenting powers, though.
Like a bloodhound, like a cheese hound.
He sniffed out every slice, block and wheel and ate them all up in a single night.
Ate until his stomach was swollen and he felt sick and sore.
Next, they tried to lock the cheese away in a cabinet high up in their wall.
This seemed like it might work, until Kloss realized he could stand on a chair.
He dragged one over and then smashed the lock with an old knockwurst sausage until it fell broken to the ground.
They found him the next morning, sleeping soundly on the kitchen floor.
In one hand was a wedge of Swiss.
In his other was the knockwurst, gnawed to a nub.
The rest of the cheese was gone, but Kloss's bulging, grumbling belly told a pretty clear story.
What will we do? his mother said to his father.
They stood together among a snowdrift of cheese wrappers, their greedy boy snoring soundly at their feet.
He's going to eat us out of business.
We tried locking the cheese, answered his father.
This time-
I'll try locking the Kloss.
We can't lock up our boy.
I'm not going to put him in a cage.
I'm going to put him in his room.
I'll be the lock.
That night, after Kloss went to bed in his garret room, his father closed the boy's door and then sat outside it broad back to the old wooden surface.
Sure enough, an hour or so later, he heard the knob shake and rattle.
The door thumped weakly into his shoulders.
Back to bed, Kloss, he said.
No cheese tonight.
No cheese, Kloss sputtered.
But, but, but... That's enough, Kloss, his father answered.
You get some sleep.
Muttering to himself, Kloss got back into bed.
He heaved a sigh and then looked out his round bedroom window at the rolling pasture of his dairy farm.
The night was warm, and he cracked the window to let in the breeze.
It carried in, cooling the air and bringing the smells of hay and cows and, of course, cheese.
Klaas breathed in deep and then stared up into the moon.
Some people said the moon was made of cheese.
He could believe that, especially on a night like tonight.
It was full a bright and waxy yellow-white that looked like nothing so much as a big fat wheel of natural cheddar.
He licked his lips.
He just couldn't help it.
If I could bob like a butterfly, If I could shoot like a star, I would fly to the sky And I'd travel so far Just to eat the moon.
If I could buzz like a bumblebee, If I could soar like a sprite, I would tear through the air to that mouth-watering sight And I'd eat the moon.
I would eat cheese so sweet Cheddar brie, Swiss and blue.
Bring a spoon to the moon And I'd eat that up too.
If I could flit like a firefly, If I could sail like a swan.
I devour, eat for hours till the whole thing's gone.
If I could eat the Klaas stopped singing for a moment.
Was that bells he heard?
He cocked his head, growing suddenly still.
There it was again, a high, silvery bell sound.
But where was it coming from?
At the window.
He rolled and flung it open wider, peering down into the buttery moonlight.
There, bobbing in the moonbeams, were three lovely little ladies, each no bigger than a cheese knife.
They smiled and danced, their wispy wings nearly invisible.
They had no bells.
It was their laughter Kloss had heard, echoing bright and silvery.
Fairies.
Dutch fairies.
They were wearing very pretty dresses, each a different color.
Green, red, and pink.
Boy, they called in through the open window.
You love cheese, boy?
Yes, it's my favorite.
I love Gouda, I love Swiss, I love Brie.
Yes, we heard the song, said a fairy in green.
Come with us, we have all the cheese you could ever want.
Piles of it, said the red.
Mountains of it, giggled the pink.
Really, cried class, already standing, eyes greedy and wide.
We'll build you a house of cheese.
A mansion.
A palace.
Okay, Klaus said, pulling on his wool socks and coat.
Suddenly his face fell.
He froze, one sock half on his pudgy foot, dangling limply.
My dad's blocking the door, he said.
I can't get out.
Leave that to us, said the green fairy, zipping past.
We're on it, said the red, following fast.
No sweat, agreed the pink, flitting by.
They buzzed little balls of bobbing light through Kloss's room.
In a graceful dive, they swept down and through the keyhole.
A moment later, Kloss could hear the steady, snorting snore of his father.
Carefully, he opened the door.
The fairies danced happily.
Their twinkling magic had put Kloss's father out cold.
Quiet as he could, Kloss followed the fairies down the stairs and out the front door.
Now for a quick ad break.
We'll be back with the rest of the story after this.
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Where are we going? he puffed.
A land of cheese, said the green fairy.
A world of cheese, said the red.
A whole universe of cheese, said the pink, and then they all laughed that silver bell laugh again.
Without hesitation, they led Klaus through the pastures and into the forest.
Klaus had been in these woods many times with his father, but they seemed stranger now.
They seemed wilder, weirder.
The kind of place fairies might live, the kind of place a boy might disappear into one night and then never find his way home again.
His heart began to pound.
Had it always been so loud?
He could hear it in his ears, louder than his footsteps.
In the dark of the forest, the fairies were bright as bobbing torches.
By their light, Kloss was able to pick his way through the trees and bushes and brambles.
He turned to look behind him, but it was nothing but a sea of darkness as velvety nothing.
Black as a dairy cow's spots.
Come on, Klaus, called the fairies, getting ahead of him now.
We are almost there.
Can't you smell the cheese?
A breeze wafted through the woods, carrying the smells of cheeses, sharp and blue, and aged and smooth.
"'I smell it!'
Kloss cried, running nose-first towards the delectable scent.
He soon emerged into a grassy clearing in the middle of the woods, the kind the old-timers had always called a fairy ring'.
He thought it was just a saying, but how wrong he had been.
The fairy ring was alive with light and laughter.
Hundreds of fairies swirled through the air, bobbing and weaving on gossamer wings.
They traced intricate patterns around each other, somehow never colliding.
The silver bell sound of their laughter seemed to fill the air.
Klaus took in all the magic with Wonder, but Wonder wouldn't feed his greedy belly.
For that, he needed cheese.
Where is it? he asked the fairies.
I smell it, but I don't see it.
His three fairy companions emerged, drifting out of the group's twirling dance.
Look again, said the green fairy.
Klaus blinked and suddenly he saw it.
There, in the center of the fairy circle, was a picnic blanket spread out.
Next to it was a basket overflowing with cheeses of all shapes and sizes and smells.
Finally, Kloss hollered, pushing through the fairy cloud and falling onto the basket.
By the time his fairy friends flew over, he was already two wheels deep.
He had a hunk of stinky Limburger in one fist and a wedge of creamy brie in the other.
Would you like some more? they asked.
Yes, bring me all the cheese.
The fairies laughed and began to bring him cheese.
Kloss didn't see where they magicked it up from, and he didn't care.
He sat on the picnic blanket and ate and ate and ate.
The fairies kept going, bringing cheese even faster than he could eat it.
Munster, Brie, Swiss, Gouda, and more.
They stacked and piled it around him until it seemed to Kloss that he was living in a castle made of cheese, with towering cheese walls on all sides.
It was heaven.
The greedy Kloss ate and ate and ate.
He ate cheese by the slice, wedge, and wheel.
He ate cheese until his face was smeared with it and his hands were caked with it.
He ate cheese until his belly was as big and round as the moon, and then kept eating cheese until finally he couldn't possibly fit another bite.
Not a crumb, not a morsel.
Why have you stopped?
The green fairy asked, flitting overhead.
There's still more to eat, said the red.
Belly up, cheese boy!
Cackled the pink.
I can't, Kloss moaned.
I'm too full.
I need to rest.
Sorry, but you wanted the cheese and we brought it.
But I'm done.
The fairies flew in close.
Up near Kloss's eyes, he could see their stern little faces under all their glow and glitter.
The pink fairy leaned in, nose to nose with him.
You're done when we say you're done.
Ah!
Kloss opened his mouth to reply, but the green fairy filled it with a log of goat cheese.
And by the time he finished chewing that, the red fairy had a wedge of some stinky blue ready.
And by the time he had finished chewing that the cheese walls around him were starting to shiver and sway.
"'Stop!
It's too much!
It's going to fall!' he wanted to scream, but he found more cheese shoved in his mouth.
The great cloud of fairies were all fetching cheese now, and their stacks seemed to loom over his world.
They wouldn't stop.
They wouldn't let him stop.
His stomach felt like it may pop.
The walls of cheese started to topple.
They blotted out the moonlight, blocked the fairy light.
They rained down on Kloss and swallowed him in darkness.'
He tried to move, but he was stuck, tried to breathe, and found his mouth full of cheese.
It was too much.
He was buried under cheese, and it just kept falling.
He felt it getting heavier and heavier.
His mouth was full, his belly was full, it was all too much, and he was going to pop.
The last thing Kloss heard before passing out was the fairies laughing, the sound of tinkling silver bells on the wind.
The next morning, as the sun was just starting to light up the world, the boy woke up in his own front yard empty, save for sparkling morning dew.
What?
What happened? he said, or tried to say.
He found his mouth was full of half-chewed grass.
Blah!
Klaus spit it onto the ground and then pulled off a few blades that had stuck to his tongue.
He looked all over but saw no sign of the fairies or the cheese.
Had it been a dream?
Klaus thought for a moment that it might have been, but then he noticed his belly still felt heavy and there were smears of yellow around his shirt.
Not a dream, then, but something, that's for sure.
Klaus shook his head.
One thing was definitely true.
He had finally, at long, long last, had his fill of cheese.
He hurried back inside and washed up before his parents caught him out and managed to get presentable in time for breakfast, where he shocked his parents by just having some toast.
Over time, Kloss realized the fairies had done him a favor.
He found himself swollen and sick less often, and now he only ate as much as a normal growing boy which, as any parent will say, is still quite a lot.
But it wasn't as desperate or greedy as it had been before.
Klaas ate what was given to him and never, ever stole extra cheese ever, ever again.
Well, maybe just a nibble.
The End Today's story, The Boy Who Loved Cheese Too Much, was a Dutch folktale adapted for you by Daniel Hines and performed for you by me, Amanda Weldon, with an original song by us both.
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