On the Existence Of Magic

My daughter has a few recurrent questions. Some are very easy to answer (“Can I have chewing gum today, as an exception?” -No), others are more of a challenge (“What happens after we die?” -Eeeeh…).

A thought-provoking specimen in that last category is “Does magic really exist?”
This is of course a logical query for a 4-year-old. She sees all that Bippety-Boppety-Boo stuff on tv, but none of her own magic wands work. Not the ones mum made out of chopsticks, not the wooden ones she found in the park, not even that impressive plastic one her aunt sent over. Pushing its button will make the star at the top flicker like a pink stroboscope, but no magical conversion of spinach into pasta takes place.

To make matters worse, at the end of the Magic Project they´d been working on in Kindergarten a magician came to give a performance. My daughter, who had eagerly been counting down to this encounter with what she hoped would be a real wizard, observed that the magician seemed to have no magic in him at all. He simply used “mechanisms”, she said. How disappointing.

Hence the question: does magic really exist?

Below you can find a delightful answer from Roald Dahl, but I´m also very curious to hear what you think…