WBUR Podcasts, Boston.

Hi, Rebecca Shear here.

We're taking some time off this summer as we gear up for Circle Round's ninth season of our WBUR podcast,

featuring dozens of folkt tales from around the world

and an exciting lineup of live episode recordings across the United States. In the meantime,

this week, please enjoy a special encore edition of Circle Round, a really fun story you may have

missed the first time around. Here we go.

Have you ever taken more than you needed?

It happens to all of us.

When we're tempted by something, we sometimes end up going a little overboard.

But in today's story, an entire town learns that when you bite off more than you can chew, it can leave a very bad taste.

I'm Rebecca Shear, and welcome to Circle Round, where story time happens all the time.

Today, our story is called the missing mountainside.

Versions of this tale come from Taiwan, a mountainous island off the coast of China.

Some really great people came together to bring you our adaptation of this tale, including Karen Huey, whom you kids may know from the animated series, Abominable and the Invisible City on Hulu, and whom you grown-ups might know from the Fox comedy Welcome to Flatch, now in its second season. So, circle around, everyone, for the missing mountainside. If you visit the island of Taiwan, you'll find many hills and mountains.

And one of those mountains has a most intriguing history.

It's known as Bon Ping Mountain or Half Screen Mountain.

And it has that name because when the mountain first formed, one side had a totally flat face like a screen.

It was as if someone had taken the biggest knife you've ever seen and sliced part of the mountain clear away.

Science says this unusually flat face was the result of tectonic plates and movement of the earth's crust.

But legend says it was the result of something else entirely.

And it all began long, long ago, in a bustling town at the mountain's base.

...