Many of these dreams have descended to us from the days of the sibyls, oracles and priestesses; with a sort of ethereal symbolism as subtle, and strong, and indescribable as the odor of the vervain that they loved, their visions have come whispering across the seas of time.

Mediævalism with its saints furnishes minute descriptions of women's dreams. In that age of class distinction, class itself was forgotten and the dreamers were heard with becoming reverence, whether they boasted of the high lineage of the beautiful Lady Clare, the follower of St. Francis, or whether like St. Catherine of Sienna, they sprang from the peasantry. The dreams of Lady Clare took tangible form in the order of the Poor Clares which works amid the suffering world to this day, while those of St. Catherine and of St Teresa are received with unquestioning reverence by the devout To St Catherine especially was vouched a vision of the Saviour of mankind seated amongst His disciples, and all about Him stretched the seas of illimitable glory.

Well-nigh perfect examples of the dream state at its highest development are the dreams of St Veronica (1497). The daughter of poor parents, she earnestly desired to become a nun, but as she was without money and had not learned to read she was disqualified. Each night when her work for the day was done she would struggle over the alphabet by the light of her little oil lamp, until at last, worn out she would fall asleep. One night the Blessed Virgin appeared to her robed in the blue of the midday sky and bearing a sheaf of lilies. Her message was distinct: "My child, trouble not thyself with this scholarship, the only learning thou needest is comprised in three letters, black, white and red. The white letter is purity of soul and body. This black letter is contentment with what God sends you. This red letter is meditation on the passion of my dear son. Let these branches of learning be mastered and the letters will come of themselves." She finally became a lay sister in the convent of St. Martha, but she was never able to sing in the choir offices until a certain dream in which an angel descended to her cell holding in his hand a psalter which he bade her read. From that moment all difficulty vanished and she "chanted the psalms of David with the antiphons and responses alternately with the angels of God."

There is one instance especially of a simple maid, born of peasant parents in the little village of Domremy in France. She is held as a witch by the English and defined as a sorceress by the Council of Basle, but to the French people she was and is a high and holy saint. An ancient prophet, no other indeed than the enchanter Merlin, had forecast from his own dream that France would be saved by a maid from an oak-wood, and curiously enough, it is an oakwood that one sees to-day from the door of the cottage once occupied by Joan of Arc's father. At the time of the child's visions and dreams, however, none recalled the old wizard's enchanted words. She was ever a dreamer, of delicate and slender build after the fashion of those whose minds dwell largely in other worlds. Her father was sufficiently well-off to spare her the arduous toil that generally falls to her class, and we are told that she attended the lighter household duties while her brothers and sisters watched the flocks in the field. Seated in the shade of the oaks beneath which Merlin had espied her, she learned from her mother to weave and to mend linen, accomplishments of which the poor child was one day to boast to her judges. And here too she wove the dreams that were to attain the glory of celestial vision. The countryside itself was filled with dreams and legends; nearby was a haunted gooseberry bush and a fountain, of which the priest forbade the children to speak, although nevertheless, the little ones believed in fairies; besides this elf-ridden fountain there was a church near the cottage of Jacques D'Arc and Joan especially loved its bells whose chimes set her dreaming, long before her dreams had articulated into definite pictures. At the age of thirteen, as she sat sewing in her father's garden, her first vision came to her. She dared not speak of the voices to any one, least of all to her little peasant companions, with whom she had often invoked the fairies at the fountain, but they noticed that from that day she became strange and wistful, wrapped in meditation. At length she told her father of her dreams, greatly to the good man's bewilderment and vexation, for he, himself, had just been visited by a dream that he did not fancy. He thought that he saw his daughter Joan following the king's men-at-arms, a proceeding that he told her he would rather see her in her grave than witness in actuality. Then he placed her under strict surveillance and commanded her to forget such nonsense. Later she was sent to an uncle at Vaucouleurs who understood her better than her father had done and who recalled Merlin's prophecy. All the while she had continued to dream and to see visions day and night. The peasants at Vaucouleurs believed in her, but the upper class, after the fashion of the worldly wise of all ages in regard to the spiritually wise, were sceptical. They made it rather unpleasant for the uncle by holding him accountable for the eccentricities of his niece. What had the King of France, craven though he might be, to do with the dreams of a daughter of a peasant of Domremy, a girl of nineteen? When the-women of the Court heard of Joan, however, they were less inclined to ridicule. Yolande of Arragon, Queen of Sicily and mother-in-law of Charles VII, had a strange dream concerning the wonderful peasant, and the young Queen Mary was likewise anxious to see her. And whether directed by their own dreams or by the less tangible though equally real sixth sense, which is the matrix of dreams, these two women espoused Joan's cause from the first and were loyal to it to the bitter end, when her visions and voices and dreams had deserted her, leaving merely a terrified child, begging that her white young body be not consumed to ashes. Her dreams, however they failed her afterwards, were true while they lasted, which was long enough to make history. They led her to recognize the King at Chinon, when all the wits of the Court were trying to puzzle her; they showed her where to find the sword that was to win the victories that they foretold for France; they designed the banner under which she was to redeem her country. Joan herself realized when her dreams had ceased to guide her and had she been permitted, she would have returned to her simple village life. But those who had profited by her dreams, having none themselves, were avid of further marvels; they forced her to remain at Court, dreamless awaiting her doom.