Goethe wrote Der Zauberlehrling in early July 1797. It appeared in Schiller’s Musen-Almanach für das Jahr 1798. While the old master is away, his apprentice brings a broom to life with a spell he cannot control. He cries: Die ich rief, die Geister, / Werd’ ich nun nicht los. The spirits I called, I now cannot get rid of. The line became a proverb. Then the master returns and stops it with one command: In die Ecke, Besen! Besen! Into the corner, broom! Broom!

The poem ends with the master’s words. As spirits, only the old master calls them up, for his own purpose: Denn als Geister / Ruft euch nur, zu seinem Zwecke, / Erst hervor der alte Meister.