| Apparitions
of the Angel
In rural Portugal of 1916 it would not
have been unusual to see children leading their family
flocks to pasture. This is what the children of the Marto and
Santos families, cousins all, did on many days. Often it was Lucia
Santos, Francisco Marto and his sister Jacinta, who gladly  undertook
this chore, grateful for the chance to be outdoors and to play
as the sheep silently grazed. They would take their families few sheep
to graze on small plots of land owned by their parents
in different parts of the sera, the mountainous plateau
on which was located the village of Fátima (where the parish church
was) and Aljustrel (where the children actually resided). Two favorite
grazing areas were the hillside facing Aljustrel, near an outcropping
called Loca do Cabeco (Place of the Head) and the Cova da Iria (Cove
of Irene) at some distance beyond Fátima. At first one, then the
other, would occur the apparitions which would change the course of
the children's lives and the history of the 20th century.
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