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After he had dug down a few feet, his spade struck something
hard and it turned out to be an iron chest. When he carried it
home, he found it to be full of money. Engraved upon the lid of
the box was an inscription which some school children read for
him. It contained the following message, "Under me doth lye
another much richer than I." Upon digging deeper in the
original hole, the tinker found an even larger treasure chest full
of gold and silver coins.
The tinker’s story certainly sounds like a very fanciful tale and there is no doubt that it, like the proverbial fish story, has gained in dimensions and impressiveness with each successive retelling. The rest of the story involves Chapman showing his gratitude for the dream by donating a sizable sum of money to the construction of a church in his home town in 1454. Pew carvings and stained-glass windows depicting the tinker can still be seen today in the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul at Swaffham in Norfolk County. An account about Lieutenant Colonel H.R.P. Dickson, an important British official in Kuwait, whose dream in 1937 led to an economic payoff containing internationally significant consequences, appeared in an article by E. Sheehan in the March 24,1974 edition of the New York Times Magazine. One day there had been a violent sand storm, which had created a hole by a palm tree in Dickson’s compound in Kuwait. That night he dreamed, he approaches the hole and finds a sarcophagus. Upon opening this, he finds a shroud which he touches and causes a beautiful maiden to rise up to life. At that point he is aware of strangers shouting in the desert, who come and seize the sobbing girl and try to bury her alive. He chases these men away. Perplexed by his dream, he consulted a Bedouin woman who had a reputation as a prophetess and dream interpreter. She told him that the girl symbolized riches beneath the sands of Kuwait and the strangers were men from across the sea who wished to prevent its discovery. She explained that he should go to the diggers at Bahrah and instruct them to leave that place and to proceed to the desert at Burgan, where they should concentrate their activities by a lonely palm tree. If they did, they would find a great treasure. Because the British team had been drilling nothing but dry wells for two years at Bahrah, they scoffed at Dickson’s dream and its interpretation by the Bedouin woman. Undeterred, the Colonel sailed to London and told his dream to the company executives, one of whom was a great believer in dreams and prophecies. As a result of Dickson’s visit, the company cabled Kuwait and told the team to move to Burgan. 185
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