The Sleeper Awakens

The people of the village had found the thing among the vines and trees. It had been there for ages past and the trees had grown over the form, binding it to the earth. Only now did they find it as they expanded their village boundaries.
“What is it?” asked the tanner.
“It looks like some casting of a warrior or monster deity.” The Smith said to the gathering people.
The woodsmen felled a nearby tree and then stopped to see what had attracted so much attention.
“What goes on here?” Enquired the man in charge of the cutting of the trees and the hauling of the logs.
“We have found something. Something old and forgotten among these trees, amidst our new fields.” Replied one of the farmers.
“What do you make of it?” The woodsman asked.
The Smith Chuckled. “It's of fine bronzes; I might make a great many tools from it if it were mine.”
“Bronze indeed, and enough that I could cast a truly wondrous bell, were it mine.” Replied the Bell maker.
“I think I could make of it a great sculpture in the image of our mayor, were it mine.” Cried the artisan.
And so the Villagers set to thinking of what they may make of the thing in their new field were it but theirs to do with as they please.
The trees were felled and the stumps removed or burned. Crops were planted and still the form lay in the field bound to the earth by the roots of a felled tree. Lay unmoved and untouched as things changed around it, a sleeper in the fields.
Time passed and the villagers left off their thoughts of the figure asleep in their fields, they labored to bring in the harvest and tighten their belts for the coming winter. But the new fields had seen them through a poor growing season with enough to last them all the winter.
Snow fell upon the fields and the people tucked in to stay by the hearths and tell the stories that kept the winds and storms at bay. The spun their yarns, and knit their cloths and still the figure stayed upon the fields dressed in a fleece of snow bound to the earth with the roots of a felled tree. Unmoved and untouched, a sleeper in the fields.
The edge of winter Hung on the village and the surrounding lands for longer than some thought possible. The thaw began much later then they expected but the harvest held them. But the villages of the surrounding landscape had fared far worse, they had not set to new fields to feed them and now faced the end of their food and too long before new seed could bare food to sustain them. Distant neighbors turned a hungry eye to the village with its new fields. Fields upon which slept a sleeper bound to the earth with the roots of a felled tree. Unmoved and untouched. The sleeper I the fields.
Hunger made of neighbors, the things from winter stories. Full of cold and danger. They propped themselves up with talk of the things they wanted all the while watching that the village had those very things. Fear of doing without and anger at being scared drove men to act as they had not dreamed they would. Up came the threshers and the scythes and they marched on the tiny village with their new fields among which the sleeper lay. Bound to the earth by the roots of a felled tree, untouched and unmoved. A sleeper in the fields.
A spirit moved upon the land, a wild spirit stirring up the ancient memories of growth and birth. The spirit called fourth others and moved about the land stirring the return to life of the fields and the return of the creatures among them. It sang in the trees and danced on the fields sowing dreams of life and health to all that was there. And the sleeper dreamed.
Angry men set out across the land, taking to the trek that would bring those with nothing to the doors of those with plenty. They wound around the little village gathering their courage by fanning their anger. Gathering their strength by gathering their neighbors. And at last the set their eyes on the tiny village. Their hungry eyes filled with anger and strength in numbers looked covetously on the grain houses and food cellars stocked with the remains from the winter stores and seed for the new planting. They looked upon the houses clad in new wooden shingles harvested in the previous year, and they saw the smoke from the warm hearth fires burning hard wood logs. Those covetous eyes looked upon the homes and fields of their neighbors with hate. The homes and the fields felt the touch of that approaching hatred. And the sleeper was touched.
The march was on and death was invoked to take his toll when they should arrive. The march was noted by the villagers who looked out over the fields at the distant army marching on their village and despaired. They could not hope to stand against the numbers that approached their walls. But they could do nothing else. For there was an omen of no mercy for them on the winds that moved over the village. So the smith pounded the plowshares into swords, and the bell maker cast the guns. The woodsman set up the axes and arrows and they waited at the gates. They stood their ground outside the village where women and children waited in fear. These men would die to hold their village and its fields. The stood their ground and would not move. And the sleeper was moved.
The spirit within the sleeper was moved by the plight of those in the village, touched by the danger that marched toward the fields where he lay, bound to the earth by the roots of a felled tree. And within the sleeper stirred the dream of life cast by the spirits that hand danced in the field this spring and among the woods that had lain here before that as far back as the sleeper had been there. And even before.
As the army approached the village it took up places on the far side of the muddy fields in the cold days of early spring. The Village men stood at the gates of their home on the other side of the fields determined to stand their ground.
Each side stood at the ready willing to kill on the fields for what it wanted. And each one heard the sound as it range out across the fields. The sleeper was unbound. The roots of the felled tree themselves fell away and the sleeper climbed to his feet looking across the fields. The sleeper had awakened.