The Book of Dreams and Ghosts
Andrew Lang20THE DUCKS' EGGS A little girl of the author's family kept ducks and was anxious to sell the eggs to her mother. But the eggs could not be found by eager search. On going to bed she said, "Perhaps I shall dream of them". Next morning she exclaimed, "I did dream of them, they are in a place between grey rock, broom, and mallow; that must be 'The Poney's Field'!" And there the eggs were found. {11b} THE LOST KEY Lady X., after walking in a wood near her house in Ireland, found that she had lost an important key. She dreamed that it was lying at the root of a certain tree, where she found it next day, and her theory is the same as that of Mr. A., the owner of the lost cheque. {11c} As a rule dreams throw everything into a dramatic form. Some one knocks at our door, and the dream bases a little drama on the noise; it constructs an explanatory myth, a myth to account for the noise, which is acted out in the theatre of the brain. To take an instance, a disappointing one:--

