One day when I had gone with my friends to collect wood by the bank of the River Gave,

I heard a sound.

 I turned towards the meadow, but saw that the trees were not moving at all.

 

I looked up and saw a grotto, and a lady wearing a white dress with a blue sash.

When I saw her, I rubbed my eyes. I thought I must be mistaken.

I put my hands in my pocket, where I kept my rosary and began to say the rosary.

When I finished, she made a sign for me to come near to her but I didn't dare.

Then, suddenly, she disappeared.

I asked the two girls if they had seen anything.

They said they hadn’t, and asked me what I had to tell them.

I told them that I had seen a lady wearing a white dress

but that I did not know who she was. I warned them to keep silent about it.

They urged me not to go back.

During her ninth appearance, the lady asked me to drink at the spring.

Not seeing a spring, I went to drink from the river.

 

               

She told me that it wasn’t there, and pointed with her finger under the rock.

When I went there, I saw only a little dirty water.

I put my hand in it but could not get hold of any of the water.

 

 

I dug with my hands and threw the water away three times, because it was dirty.

Then, at the fourth attempt, I managed to drink.

 

I asked her three times, who she was.

She went on smiling and so I dared ask her once more.

Then, she raised her eyes to heaven, joined her hands and said to me,

"I am the Immaculate Conception."

Those were the last words she spoke to me.’