Scottish Country Dancing Dictionary

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Scottish Country Dance Instruction

THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE (J8x32) 2C (4C set) Iain Boyd Katherine's Book

1- 8 1s+2s advance and retire, 1s+2s dance DoSiDo
9-16 1s+2s advance and retire, 1s+2s dance ½ R&L
17-24 1s dance ½ Fig of 8 round 2s, 2s+1s turn RH
25-32 2s dance ½ Fig of 8 round 1s, 2s+1s turn RH

(MINICRIB. Dance crib compiled by Charles Upton, Deeside Caledonian Society, and his successors)


Keith Rose's Crib Diagrams


Dance Instruction Videos

The Sorcerer's Apprentice - Scottish Country Dancing Instruction Video

Dance Information

The title of this dance, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, comes from the Sorcerer's Apprentice - Poem written by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe in 1797.

That old sorcerer has vanished
And for once has gone away!
Spirits called by him, now banished,
My commands shall soon obey.
Every step and saying
That he used, I know,
And with sprites obeying
My arts I will show.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice Poem begins as an old sorcerer departs his workshop, leaving his apprentice with chores to perform. Tired of fetching water by pail, the apprentice enchants a broom to do the work for him - using magic in which he is not yet fully trained. The floor is soon awash with water, and the apprentice realizes that he cannot stop the broom because he does not know how.

The apprentice splits the broom in two with an axe, but each of the pieces becomes a whole new broom and takes up a pail and continues fetching water, now at twice the speed. When all seems lost, the old sorcerer returns and quickly breaks the spell. The poem finishes with the old sorcerer's statement that powerful spirits should only be called by the master himself.

Sorcerer's Apprentice
Iron Sculpture Zauberlehrling (Sorcerer's Apprentice) At Sunset Looking Like A Dancing Pylon


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