The Boy Who Wanted More Cheese

This. Looks. Delicious.

Hello again, reader. This week, I have a Dutch tale for you. I chose The Boy Who Wanted More Cheese because I always want more cheese, so I had to see what happened to this boy. Don't worry, it's not a dark fairy tale, so he survives. Follow the link above to read the story before we dive below the surface of it. There's quite a bit of detail at the beginning, but they do get to the plot after that.

Firstly, we've all known those people who are about as big around as a stick, but who seem to have bottomless stomachs. Klaas is one such person. He must be kind of a trial to his parents. They want to be able to feed all of their children enough, but Klaas can never get enough. He seems to be a good child in everything else, but I wonder if his parents feel a bit inadequate that they aren't able to feed him until he's full. Hopefully they just accept his hunger along with his more pleasing traits. After all, this isn't Hansel and Gretel where the kids are abandoned in the forest because they're eating more than the parents can afford.

As soon as Klaas knew that fairies were calling him and he decided to answer their call, I thought he would either never go home again, or it would be about 50 years later when he got there. Fairy time runs differently than human time. Then, with all of this unknown risk, he gets to their fairy ring and there's no cheese! I was a little outraged for him. He's throwing away everything to get some more cheese and when he gets there, the fairies just want to dance with him. However, Klaas doesn't seem to mind working up an appetite and the fairies don't dance him to death, which was also a possibility I was wondering about. Then, and only then, does Klaas get the lesson of being careful what he wishes for.

Klaas seems to eat an impressive amount of cheese, but even he has a limit. I have to take a minute here and marvel that he ate the cheese straight. There is no mention of crackers, bread, or anything else. We've all eaten cheese straight, but it is more enjoyable with something else to go with it. Oh, you haven't eaten cheese by itself? I do recommend it, just not to the extent that Klaas does it. When he wakes up and Klaas realizes he's eating grass, I have to wonder about the rest of the cheese. Was some of it real, but the fairies switched out for grass at the end? It makes more sense that all of it was grass, but as a fellow cheese lover, I hope Klaas at least got some of the cheese he was wanting.

The moral I found for this story is to make sure you specify that you only want real cheese when you're accepting unlimited amounts of it from fairies. What do you think? Did Klaas get what was coming to him for messing with the fairies? Or is he to be pitied for being lied to?

Do you have a fairy tale or legend you want me to read? Comment below and I'll write a post about it!