A Sleeping Giant

The Dark Forest begins beyond the green hills, where Darty revolves on his mill. This is the same Dark Forest from which Eagle brought the spruce to Chaos in exchange for a fur coat, but this forest is famous not only for this. It has plenty of its local inhabitants.

For example, Big Gnaw lives in the Dark Forest. He has immense paws and heavy black skin. And every little animal adores him. But this is now because nobody was friends with Big Gnaw before. Every spring, he suffered idle and roared; every summer, he ate berries and honey; every autumn, he wandered through the forest and yawned; and every winter, he slept and snored. Big Gnaw lived alone in a den under the roots of a gigantic oak tree. And the whole forest heard his snoring. In winter, every branch shook because of a loud, eerie sound. Big Gnaw, although an enormous beast, is not aggressive. However, his snoring terrified every needle on every pine tree. Big Gnaw slept on his back all winter. And he was the only one who got enough sleep every winter. Every spring, the inhabitants of the Dark Forest came to the gigantic oak tree. Each time, they waited for the Big Gnaw to wake up and immediately attacked him with complaints and reproaches. And somebody also threw cones painfully. That's why Big Gnaw suffered every spring and roared with resentment. Nothing made him happy until the summer and the first berries appearance.

One winter, Weirdness appeared in the forest. This Weirdness arrived on spring-like legs. She was grey, fluffy and funny. The Weirdness wandered along the paths, leaving wee footprints and shuddering from the loud snoring echoing through the forest. She was shy but curious. Curiosity pushed her towards the creepy sound, but each minute, she took one step forward and two steps back out of fear. Therefore, it took her three days to get to the den. Weirdness stuck her long nose into the den and saw Big Gnaw, who slept and snored for the whole neighbourhood to hear, lying on his back. Weirdness at first recoiled, rolled out of the den head over heels, and got stuck in a snowdrift. Her spring-like legs stuck out from there and twitched so funny that the whole forest was giggling. And somebody even threw cones. However, Weirdness wasn't offended, got out of the snowdrift, shook herself off and squeezed into the den again.

She climbed under the side of Big Gnaw and rested her springy legs against a snag. Then Weirdness pushed Big Gnaw once. And another time. And the third. So she turned him over on his side, and he suddenly stopped snoring, curled up and began to snuffle quietly. Then Weirdness settled down comfortably next to him and dozed off until spring.

Since then, Big Gnaw always wakes up in a good mood, and Weirdness lives in his den, drinks tea with raspberries and sleeps next to him.