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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 4779817" data-attributes="member: 80487">Simply hitting one arrow with another is not terribly amazing. I have parted cedar arrows along several inches of their length simply with the shattering force of a target-shooting tip -- and I was a pretty poor marksman!Splitting the full length of a wooden shaft is highly improbable because (for one thing) the blade tends to follow the twisting grain of the wood. I suppose it might have occurred, but I think the feat was clearly meant to highlight the "larger than (real) life" nature of Robin Hood, a figure of legend.The ability to accomplish such a shot regularly by choice with a given try would be to my mind as magical as a similar ability to win a game of chance such as a state lottery.That in fact falls short of literally breaking any known law of physics, if the "by choice" bit is actually just coincidence. Stretch those laws far enough into the realm of improbability -- into the domain of things that might happen once in a number of universes surpassing the number of stars in our own -- and they can accommodate miracles indeed.So, if actually breaking them is not warrant enough for magic, then what is left as a standard of definition? Only superficials, I fear. To me, that saps wonder not only from the supernatural but also from the natural in contrast with which it has traditionally been defined.Perhaps the rejection of magic may express, more deeply than its embracing, a flight from reality.</blockquote>

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