Can you parry a spell with a weapon?

[snackalot 5]

When I cast a spell attack against a hero, may the hero use a weapon to help defend against the spell attack?

 

The spell cast was "Set's Bite."  Set's Bite does not have an area of effect icon on it.  The hero attempted to parry by using "Conan's Sword."  The only relevant rules I could find were:

• Hero's Book v2.0 p.16: "Characters defend against and suffer damage from spell attacks as they would against other attacks."
• Hero's Book v2.0 p.17: "A hero can choose only a shield when defending against a ranged or area attack."

 

Those two lines taken together make it sound like the rule is that a weapon may be used to parry any attack that is not a ranged or area attack.  Set's Bite does not have the area of effect icon on it, and it does not explicitly state that it is a ranged attack.  I could not find a general rule that said spell attacks should be considered to be ranged attacks.  Thus, the hero can use Conan's Sword to parry it.  Is that correct?  It just feels weird that Conan cannot parry an arrow with his sword, but that he can parry magical spells being thrown at him by deflecting it with a sword.

 

[Demetrio 4]

But I thought that spells are normally treated as ranged attacks unless stated otherwise and in this case I would say you can only use a shield... similar statements can be found on BGG forums

 

[garbetsp 277]

Quote

"Imagine the spell this way: The caster conjures up a mystical snake that inflicts the bite, then the snake dissipates."  -- Jim Williamson on BGG

 

It's cast against anyone within line of sight. So, in this interpretation the mystical snake from the outer dark phases in and attacks that character. Then that character is using his sword to deflect it's bite.