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 Adv&Ret, 1s+2s dance DoSiDo
9-16 1s+2s Adv&Ret, 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)

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Keith Rose's Crib Diagrams

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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.

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.

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Text from this original The Sorcerer's Apprentice article on Wikipedia.
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Additional search terms: Sorcerers.

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