I have already written about how the modern story of “Cinderella” is probably derived from the ancient Greek story of Rhodopis, but the story of the “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” also originates from ancient Greece.
The earliest known version of the “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” comes from the dialogue The Lover of Lies written by the satirist Loukianos of Samosata. Although he was a native Syrian, Loukianos wrote exclusively in Greek.
The dialogue is about a skeptic named Tychiades who goes to visit an elderly friend named Eukrates, only discover that his house is filled with friends suggesting folk remedies for all his ailments. When Tychiades tells them he does not believe in the effectiveness of their remedies, they begin telling him all sorts of wild stories, trying to convince him to believe in the supernatural. The stories grow more and more outlandish and ridiculous as the framing story progresses until, finally, near the end, Eukrates himself tells the story of how he, as a young man, once had an encounter with an Egyptian sorcerer named Pankrates. I now quote the relevant passage in full, as translated by H.W. and F.G. Fowler:
“‘When I was a young man, I passed some time in Egypt, my father having sent me to that country for my education. I took it into my head to sail up the Nile to Koptos, and thence pay a visit to the statue of Memnon, and hear the curious sound that proceeds from it at sunrise. In this respect, I was more fortunate than most people, who hear nothing but an indistinct voice: Memnon actually opened his lips, and delivered me an oracle in seven hexameters; it is foreign to my present purpose, or I would quote you the very lines. Well now, one of my fellow passengers on the way up was a scribe of Memphis, an extraordinarily able man, versed in all the lore of the Egyptians. He was said to have passed twenty-three years of his life underground in the tombs, studying occult sciences under the instruction of Isis herself.'”
“‘”You must mean the divine Pankrates, my teacher,” exclaimed Arignotos; “tall, clean-shaven, snub-nosed, protruding lips, rather thin in the legs; dresses entirely in linen, has a thoughtful expression, and speaks Greek with a slight accent?”‘”
“‘Yes, it was Pankrates himself. I knew nothing about him at first, but whenever we anchored I used to see him doing the most marvellous things,–for instance, he would actually ride on the crocodiles’ backs, and swim about among the brutes, and they would fawn upon him and wag their tails; and then I realized that he was no common man. I made some advances, and by imperceptible degrees came to be on quite a friendly footing with him, and was admitted to a share in his mysterious arts. The end of it was, that he prevailed on me to leave all my servants behind at Memphis, and accompany him alone; assuring me that we should not want for attendance. This plan we accordingly followed from that time onwards. Whenever we came to an inn, he used to take up the bar of the door, or a broom, or perhaps a pestle, dress it up in clothes, and utter a certain incantation; whereupon the thing would begin to walk about, so that every one took it for a man. It would go off and draw water, buy and cook provisions, and make itself generally useful. When we had no further occasion for its services, there was another incantation, after which the broom was a broom once more, or the pestle a pestle. I could never get him to teach me this incantation, though it was not for want of trying; open as he was about everything else, he guarded this one secret jealously. At last one day I hid in a dark corner, and overheard the magic syllables; they were three in number. The Egyptian gave the pestle its instructions, and then went off to the market. Well, next day he was again busy in the market: so I took the pestle, dressed it, pronounced the three syllables exactly as he had done, and ordered it to become a water-carrier. It brought me the pitcher full; and then I said: “Stop: be water-carrier no longer, but pestle as heretofore.” But the thing would take no notice of me: it went on drawing water the whole time, until at last the house was full of it. This was awkward: if Pankrates came back, he would be angry, I thought (and so indeed it turned out). I took an axe, and cut the pestle in two. The result was that both halves took pitchers and fetched water; I had two water-carriers instead of one. This was still going on, when Pankrates appeared. He saw how things stood, and turned the water-carriers back into wood; and then he withdrew himself from me, and went away, whither I knew not.'”
“‘And you can actually make a man out of a pestle to this day?’ asked Deinomachos.”
“‘Yes, I can do that, but that is only half the process: I cannot turn it back again into its original form; if once it became a water-carrier, its activity would swamp the house.'”
This story was later adapted in 1797 by the German poet and playwright Johann Wolfgang von Goethe into a ballad entitled Der Zauberlehrling, which literally means “The Magic-Learner.” The ballad became wildly popular in Germany and in other German-speaking countries.
In 1896, the French composer Paul Dukas adapted Goethe’s ballad into a symphony entitled L’apprenti sorcier, meaning “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” In 1940, Walt Disney animation studios adapted Dukas’s symphony into a cartoon sequence for the film Fantasia, featuring Mickey Mouse as the eponymous “apprentice.” The Disney cartoon popularized story in the English-speaking world and, as is sadly the case for most fables and folk tales, most people today in the United States are only aware of the Disney version and are completely oblivious to the story’s long cultural heritage.
IMAGE CREDITS
The featured image for this article is an illustration of Goethe’s ballad drawn by Ferdinand Barth in around 1882. This image was retrieved from Wikimedia Commons and is in the public domain in the United States of America.
Wow! I had no idea the story went so far back. And in this case, it looks like Disney pretty much stuck with the original story instead of making a lot of changes like they usually do.
I am glad you enjoyed the article and I thank you for your feedback. You are right that, for this one, Disney did stick fairly close to the original. They followed Goethe’s ballad almost to the t. (Of course, they replaced the “apprentice” with Mickey Mouse, which constitutes as a major change, but does not really affect the story.) Most of the major divergences between Loukianos’s version and the Disney version are actually the result of Goethe’s innovation. In Loukianos’s version, presented here above, the characters are Eukrates, a Greek man visiting Egypt, and Pankrates, an Egyptian mystic. In Goethe’s version, however, Eukrates is replaced by the “apprentice” and Pankrates is replaced with the “sorcerer.” Similarly, in Loukianos’s version, Eukrates actually animates a pestle, although he does mention a broomstick as one of the other objects the spell could be used to animate, but, in Goethe’s poem, the broomstick is the object that he actually animates. Loukianos’s purpose is also different from Goethe’s. Loukianos’s sole purpose in telling the story was to make fun of people who believe in magic, whereas Goethe’s purpose was to teach the moral lesson that one should not meddle in things that one does not understand.