"The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (German: "Der Zauberlehrling") is a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe written in 1797. The poem is a ballad in fourteen stanzas.
The Disney movies Fantasia and Fantasia 2000 were based on this poem.
The story begins with an apprentice in magic who was given chores by an old sorcerer before leaving his workshop. As he grew tired of fetching water by pail, the apprentice enchanted a broom to do the work for him. Before long, the floor slowly began getting wet all over, and the apprentice realized that he cannot stop the broom from working because he didn't know the magic required to do so.
He split the broom with an axe to stop it, but each of the pieces it split into become a whole broom, resuming their task as normal. The room rapidly started flooding, and when it all seemed lost, the old sorcerer returned and quickly broke the spell. In the end, the old sorcerer stated that only a master should invoke powerful spirits.
