of woods and thickets, while the hermits
who had fixed themselves upon its summits, received their daily bread
from the charity of the priest of the neighboring parish of Beauvoir; an
ass spontaneously undertaking the office of conveying it to them, till
on the road he fell a prey to a wolf, who was then constrained by
Providence to devote himself to the same pious labor.

At length, about the year 709, it was decreed that the rock should at
once change its designation and its patron. To the clouds of Paganism,
succeeded the sun of Christianity; and the original heathen appellation,
_Tumba_, was replaced by one of the most elevated names of holy writ.
St. Michael, "the chief of the angels and of the host of heaven, the
protector of the Hebrew synagogue of yore, as now of the Catholic
church, the conqueror of the old serpent, and the leader of souls to
heaven," condescended to be worshipped here upon the western coast, as
on Mount Garganus in the east, and with this view appeared to St.
Aubert, then bishop of Avranches, commanding him to erect a church to
his honor upon the mount. Another legend relates, how there had
previously existed upon the same spot, a religious edifice, which had
passed under the name of the _Monasterium ad duas Tumbas_, being equally
appropriated to the adjoining rock of Tombeleine. However this may have
been, it is admitted on all sides that a church was built, and that the
hill knew thenceforth no other name than that of St. Michael's Mount;
though Aubert, tardy in his belief, had refused to obey the injunction,
till it had been repeated three several times, upon the last of which,
the archangel touched the head of the saint, and left imprinted in his
skull the marks of his fingers, which the author, here quoted, relates
that he himself saw, to his great delight, in the years 1612 and 1641.

To the miraculous vision, succeeded other occurrences of similar import.
A tethered bull pointed out the spot where the holy edifice should be
erected, and at the same time circumscribed its limits; a rock, that
opposed the progress of the workmen, and was immoveable by human art,
spontaneously withdrew at the touch of an infant's foot; and the earth
opening, on being struck with St. Aubert's staff, gave birth to a spring
of water, at once of the utmost use to the inhabitants, and gifted with
the most sanative powers. At about the same period also, the sea
ingulphed the neighboring forests,[214] insulating