Read Patrañas; or, Spanish Stories, Legendary and Traditional Page 23

  I.

  ST. MICHAEL'S FEATHER.

  There is a town in Spain where a feather is preserved which is reportedby the common people to have been shed by the Archangel Michael onthe occasion of a miraculous visit to the place. An archaeologist whowas at great pains to investigate this matter, after spending muchtime over the inquiry, traced it very satisfactorily to an occasionin which, some hundreds of years ago, an Auto Sacramentale, or, as wesay in English, a Mystery Play--that is, a dramatic representation ofa religious subject--was being shown, in which St. Michael was one ofthe dramatis personae. A feather having fallen from the wings employedon the occasion, was picked up and preserved with the care whichso 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 toSt. Michael the Archangel himself.