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.
