Words as Containers of Magic

Jim Butcher, author of mystery novels set in a magic-enabled world, posits that words aren’t so much magical in themselves as they are containers that hold the magic. “They give [magic] a shape and a form, they make it useful, describe the images within.” One might imagine a magician’s enchanted silk as such a container, giving shape and form to the invisible magic force that animates it. Or one might picture the age-old cup-and-ball tumbler, or the magician’s signature top hat, as delineating a space within which marvels occur.