Jonathan Wanner

He is the idol of every Catholic lad—that muscle-clad crusader girted in God’s mithril, St. More-Manly-Than-Man Michael. As skull-cracker of demons, he hurled Satan into Hell; as Heaven’s herald, he forbade Abraham to sacrifice Isaac; as arbiter of God’s wrath, he riddled Egypt with plagues; as guardian of the chosen people, he piloted the Israelites to the Promised Land; as captain of the Heavenly Hosts, he will slay the Antichrist at the End Times. Outside the Bible, however, folk legends commonly assign the Archangel a less familiar and less militant role: the Swindler of Satan. Peasant tales frequently pit St. Michael against the Devil—not sword to sword, but wit to wit. With an acumen that could outriddle any Bilbo or Puss in Boots, the angelic Captain proves he has brain enough to match his brawn.

St. Michael Slaying the Dragon.1

Such is the case in “Why the Sole of Man’s Foot is not Even.” As the story goes, the Devil, after his rebellion, stole the sun and fled to Earth. So God sent St. Michael to retrieve it. After much deliberation, the Archangel challenged the Devil to a diving competition. The Saint, plunging first, plummeted all the way to the ocean floor before returning with sand between his teeth. Suspecting a ploy afoot, the Devil spat on the ground and transformed the wad into a magpie, instructing it to guard the sun. Finally the Devil submerged himself, whereupon St. Michael made the sign of the cross: in an instant the ocean’s surface transformed into a thick slab of ice. Seizing the sun, the Archangel hastened to Heaven, leaving the magpie to shriek and bawl. The Devil, hearing the din, rushed back to the surface only to find himself imprisoned under a frozen wall. Plunging back down, he fetched a boulder from the ocean floor, shattered the ice, and continued the chase. St. Michael already had one foot in Heaven when the Devil, clawing at his other foot, tore off a lump of flesh. After the misdeed, God honored St. Michael by deeming that all men shall live with uneven soles under their feet.2

Another legend tells of French peasants who used scissors to harvest their meadows. Only Satan had a magical tool that could cut the grass in short order, but out of selfishness he would lend it to no one and used it only in the stealth of the night. One day Satan agreed to mow for a slothful friend. Overhearing the offer, St. Michael devised a plan: he planted iron stakes in the meadow then hid in the hollow of an oak. When midnight came, the Devil arrived with his wondrous tool and began to crop the grass in long swaths. Without warning, he struck the first iron stake; the tool cracked. Before long he struck the second stake—and when his tool broke at last, he cursed his fortune and sought a smith in the village. The next morning, St. Michael came to the smith and bid him to recreate the Devil’s tool. After hammering it into shape, the man handed over the scythe to St. Michael, who shared the tool with peasants until it was famously known. Thirsting for revenge, Satan challenged the Archangel to a duel in an oven. For a weapon, St. Michael chose a little wooden peg, so that when the Devil could not fit his shovel in the little cell, the Saint knocked him about his head until he was thoroughly bruised. After knocking the Demon over the head, the Saint won the day.3

The renowned abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel is on a tidal island about 0.6 miles off the northwestern coast of France.4

Even better known is Guy de Maupassant’s Legend of Mont-Saint-Michel, named after the famed abbey in Normandy. To guard himself from Satan’s malevolence, St. Michael built a resplendent castle on an islet and surrounded it with perilous quicksand. Across the way, the devil dwelt in a humble cottage on the hill, though he owned all the salt marshes and fertile lands which abounded in the finest crops. Satan reveled in his wealth while St. Michael lived as a pauper. One fine morning, St. Michael crossed the water and found the Devil dining on soup in his garden. Seeing the Saint, the demon offered him a drink. A glass of milk later, St. Michael put forward a proposition. He asked the Devil for his land; in exchange, he would cultivate it and share the produce equally with the Demon. The Devil, lazy as he was, agreed. They decided that the Saint would receive all the crops that grew below ground, and the Sinner would receive those above. Six months later, the lands yielded nothing but roots: carrots, turnips, onions, and parsnips. Satan, outraged, accused the Saint of swindling. So St. Michael offered to pay him everything that grew underground the following year. Only when the next year came, the lands were teeming with gold-haired wheat, plenteous oats, peas galore, and all things that thrive above the ground. Tearing his hair in anger, Satan took back his fields and vowed to take no heed of his crafty neighbor. A year rolled by before St. Michael invited the Devil to dinner. The Demon greedily accepted, but after gorging himself on the feast he became nauseous to the point of vomiting. Seeing his chance, St. Michael drove Satan out of his castle: giving the Malevolent Soul an almighty kick in the rear, he threw him across the bay like a cannonball. With a thud the Demon landed outside the town of Mortain, sinking his claws deep into the rock. Even today you can see the vestiges of the Devil etched there in the earth.5

A variation on this Norman legend recounts how St. Michael, to prove God’s might, challenged the Devil to a castle building contest. With the aid of demonic minions, Satan built a mountainous citadel of granite. St. Michael responded by erecting a monumental fortress out of ice crystals: it was clear that its luster and brilliance far outshined the Devil’s somber stones. Envious, the Devil begged the Saint to swap castles. Michael agreed. Only when summer came, the ice melted in the heat while Michael’s fortress remained intact. It still stands as Mont-Saint-Michel, the castle-like abbey.6

Unique as these tales are, they follow the same general formula. St. Michael either outwits the Devil by a deal (e.g. to cultivate crops, to come to dinner, to swap castles) or by a competition (e.g. diving, a duel in an oven, castle building). More often than not, brute force is unnecessary because the Devil ironically defeats himself: by his greed, his sun and scythe are stolen; by his slothfulness, his farming profits come to naught; by his gluttony, the strength food should supply is diminished; by his envy, his enviable castle melts. Cleverly exploiting sin’s self-destructive nature, St. Michael’s best weapon ironically ends up being the Devil himself. Another similarity these folk tales share is their genre: they are origin stories. The genesis each tale depicts may not be historically accurate, but that hardly matters. Their value lies in their ability to reconstruct our memory so that more trips down that lane lead to St. Michael. Just as a kaleidoscope transmutes a room into a stained-glass window, these legends transfigure ordinary images into divine symbols. Man’s foot is not only misshapen so that he can maintain balance—it is a memento of angelic honor; a scythe is not simply a tool—it is a celestial gift to mankind; a scarred rock is not merely a natural phenomenon—it signifies a demon’s defeat; an abbey is not just a building—it is a trophy of heavenly wit. Such associations may not be Biblical, but one can do worse than turn the material world into a reminder of immaterial realities. It is more than a pretty thought that fiction reveals non-fictional truths that fly before our winking eyes: after all, the fertile crescent of the ordinary is where our veneration of the divine may find arable ground. So, at the risk of replaying that eon-old battle between angel and demon once more, I would like to end, not with the quip of a literary critic, but with the harp of a storyteller:

St. Michael the Starbuilder

Man was wandering in the wilderness of this world when God saw he had lost his way. So the Almighty sent St. Michael to build a guiding star. Faster than a hawk, the Archangel threshed his wings across the sky, when along came the Devil on the Cosmic Road.

“Whither dost thou wend?” the Great Deceiver inquired.

St. Michael’s eyes gleamed: “To build a star as bright as Heaven’s doorstep.”

The Devil cackled: for the very name of Lucifer means “Light Bearer,” and he regarded himself the sole master of light. Before no time at all, the two agreed to see which of them could build the brightest star.

The Devil opened his mouth, and out poured a rancid stench which attracted a mighty fleet of bat-riding demons. “Hurry to earth,” he scowled, “and gather all burning things that cause harm to men.” So they went to the Sahara and chopped down six million trees until the land was barren; and they drilled deeper than the ocean until they extracted six million pounds of coal; and they piled these into a large heap and threw upon it six million barrels of gunpowder, so that when the Devil lit the match, the explosion rivaled the sun.

Then St. Michael strummed his harp. He sang to the bees, who gathered for him seven million honeycombs; he sang to the worms, who dug up for him seven million gems; he sang to the rivers, who brought him seven million golden nuggets. Then he boiled and sifted the honeycombs until they became a fragrant wax, and he sanded and polished the gems until they outshone the rarest diamond, and he melted and refined the golden nuggets until they were the purest mirrors. Into one great ball he rolled the wax, embedding ropes in it until it became a candle of cosmic proportions. On its surface he lodged the gems and gold. When the Archangel held his flaming sword to the wick, the brightest star was born. Words cannot wield how radiant it appeared. In comparison, the Devil’s sphere seemed a mere firefly.

So furious was Satan that smoke steamed out of his nose. But St. Michael was not one to gloat. Rather, he proposed that the dim star may wax brighter if it were stoked. At this, the Prince of Demons took up his pitchfork. He poked and prodded and goaded his star until its embers were red with anger. Then he conjured with his breath a mighty hurricane of fire, only instead of beaming brighter, the star suddenly exploded and collapsed into a cold, hard wad. Ashamed of his defeat, the Devil kicked the dead star. To this day, it sails across the sky every 75 years: some call it Halley’s comet. But St. Michael’s masterpiece, the North Star, you may see every day.

Endnotes

1 Martin Schongauer, St. Michael Slaying the Dragon (1480-90). https://library-artstor-org.proxycu.wrlc.org/asset/ARTSTOR_103_41822001143492.

2 “Why the Sole of Man’s Foot is Not Even,” in Michaelmas , ed. David Mitchell (Chatham: Waldorf Publications, 2015), 142-143.

3 “The Devil’s Scythe,” in Michaelmas , ed. David Mitchell (Chatham: Waldorf Publications, 2015), 144-145.

4 Bruno Barbey, Mont-Saint-Michel (Normandy, France, 1988). https://library-artstor-org.proxycu.wrlc.org/asset/AWSS35953_35953_37855095.

5 Guy de Maupassant, “La Légende du Mont-Saint-Michel,” Vol. 7 of Oeuvres Complètes de Guy de Maupassant (Paris: Louis Conard, 1908), 101-113.

6 “What the Peasants of Normandy Tell about Michael,” in Michaelmas , ed. David Mitchell (Chatham: Waldorf Publications, 2015), 146-147.