The Alchemist

Santiago is a young shepherd from Andalusia, in southern Spain. He left the seminary because he preferred traveling through different lands to spending his whole life in a single town, even if it meant giving up a steady income and a more predictable future. Tending sheep gave him what he valued most: the freedom to move.

Sleeping near a ruined church with a sycamore growing inside the old sacristy, he has the same dream two nights in a row: a child takes him to the Pyramids of Egypt and promises to show him a hidden treasure there, but the dream always breaks off before the reveal.

It's the kind of omen many people would forget in the rush of the next day. Santiago decides to take it seriously and look for someone who can interpret dreams, something the shepherds in the area don't usually do.

In the town of Tarifa, Santiago finds a gypsy woman willing to interpret the dream, but she charges for it: if the treasure is found, she gets a share. Santiago thinks the price is outrageous, since she's only offering an opinion, not a map, but he agrees anyway.

The gypsy confirms that there really is a treasure near the Pyramids of Egypt and that he must go there to find it. She gives no further detail, only the confirmation that the dream deserves to be followed.

The episode already shows a pattern that repeats throughout the book: whoever helps Santiago along the way usually charges something, whether money, work, or sacrifice. Nothing on this journey comes free, not even a simple dream interpretation.

Soon after, Santiago is approached by an old man who introduces himself as Melchizedek, king of Salem. The old man wears a metal breastplate set with stones and insists on talking about the dream Santiago never told him he'd had.

Melchizedek presents the central idea of the book: every person carries a Personal Legend, the thing they always wanted to do since they were young, before piling up the excuses and fears that push that desire to the back of the drawer. According to the old man, there is also a favorable principle: when someone truly decides to pursue their own Personal Legend, the circumstances around them tend to line up to help.

As a gesture of good faith, the old man hands over two stones, Urim and Thummim, one black and one white, which Santiago can use to choose between a yes and a no when the answer is hard to see on his own.