Noun

(en-noun)

The use of rituals or actions, especially based on supernatural or occult knowledge, to manipulate or obtain information about the natural world, especially when seen as falling outside the realm of religion; also the forces allegedly drawn on for such practices.

*c. 1489 , (William Caxton), Foure Sonnes of Aymon :

*:And whan he shall be arrayed as I telle you / lete hym thenne doo his incantacyons & his magyke as he wyll […].

*1781 , (Edward Gibbon), Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , II.23:

*:The arts of magic and divination were strictly prohibited.

*1971 , , Religion and the Decline of Magic , Folio Society 2012, p. 23:

*:Conversions to the new religion […] have frequently been assisted by the view of converts that they are acquiring not just a means of otherworldly salvation, but a new and more powerful magic .

A specific ritual or procedure associated with supernatural magic or with mysticism; a spell.

Something producing remarkable results, especially when not fully understood; an enchanting quality; exceptional skill.

* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)

, title=(The China Governess) , chapter=1 citation , passage=The original family who had begun to build a palace to rival Nonesuch had died out before they had put up little more than the gateway, so that the actual structure which had come down to posterity retained the secret magic of a promise rather than the overpowering splendour of a great architectural achievement.}}

A conjuring trick or illusion performed to give the appearance of supernatural phenomena or powers.

Noun

The collection of myths of a people, concerning the origin of the people, history, deities, ancestors and heroes.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-08, volume=407, issue=8839, page=55, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Obama goes troll-hunting , passage=The solitary, lumbering trolls of Scandinavian mythology would sometimes be turned to stone by exposure to sunlight. Barack Obama is hoping that several measures announced on June 4th will have a similarly paralysing effect on their modern incarnation, the patent troll.}}

(countable, and, uncountable) A similar body of myths concerning an event, person or institution.

* 2003 , Peter Utgaard, Remembering & Forgetting Nazism: Education, National Identity, and the Victim Myth in Postwar Austria , Berghahn Books, ISBN 978-1-57181-187-5, page x:

This program to distinguish Austria from Germany was important to building a new Austria, but it also indirectly contributed to victim mythology by implying that participation in the Nazi war of conquest was antithetical to Austrian identity.

Pervasive elements of a fictional universe that resemble a mythological universe.

* 2000 April 28, Caryn James (?), As Scheherazade Was Saying . . .], in The New York Times'', page E31, reproduced in ''The New York Times Television Reviews 2000 , Routledge (2001), ISBN 978-1-57958-060-5, [http://books.google.com/books?id=z0QFKpI6p7AC&pg=PA198&dq=mythology page 198:

This tongue-in-cheek episode is especially fun for people who don’t take their “X-Files” mythology seriously.

(uncountable) The systematic collection and study of myths.