There is a town in Spain where a feather is preserved which is reported
by the common people to have been shed by the Archangel Michael on
the occasion of a miraculous visit to the place. An archæologist who
was at great pains to investigate this matter, after spending much
time over the inquiry, traced it very satisfactorily to an occasion
in which, some hundreds of years ago, an Auto Sacramentale, or, as we
say in English, a Mystery Play--that is, a dramatic representation of
a religious subject--was being shown, in which St. Michael was one of
the dramatis personæ. A feather having fallen from the wings employed
on the occasion, was picked up and preserved with the care which
so religious a people naturally bestowed on any thing connected,
however remotely, with a sacred matter; and in process of time,
the local circumstances being forgotten, the feather was ascribed to
St. Michael the Archangel himself.