FSW: Green Witches

Well....here's my second salvo in the fabulous Friday Sketch Wars. This time, I decided to get medieval on someone's ass! (might have something to do with the fact I'm in an Improvised Shakespeare show Friday night, and an improviosed Tarantino show Saturday night).

Anyway....our theme this week was "Gatherings" - I'll update links as soon as the other combatants report in!

____________________________________________________________________________________

EXT. - A CLEARING IN A CREEPY FOREST - NIGHT
Lightning and thunder above, a big cauldron sits in the clearing, wolves howl, unseen critters scamper past in the dark, the sound of bat-wings flapping overhead, and only a thin shaft of moonlight reveals anything more than the black silhouettes of twisted ancient trees.

HILDA, and old scraggly woman with a crooked nose, long straggly gray hair, slightly green skin, huge hair warts om her face, gnarled hands, wearing a long tattered ratty black dress and pointy black hat, enters from out of the woods with the use of a gnarled wooden stick as a cane. She is carrying a burlap sack filled with stuff.

HILDA
The creatures of darkness stir and cry out for mischief! The skies blacken and split...the time for evil has come!

HILDA waves her hands at the cauldron and a fire bursts out under it. Steam also starts rising from whatever is in the cauldron

HILDA
Come forth my sisters and join me now! Bring forth your gifts and place them in our cauldron - let now our machinations begin!

HELGA who looks like a variation on HILDA comes out of the woods, carrying a similar sack.

HELGA
Run cold blood, and good cheer flee
When joined in mischief, we sisters three!

HARPA now enters from the woods, the third sister, with another sack

HARPA
By raven’s caw, and toadlet’s croak,
Mother night our dark deeds cloak

HILDA
To our labors bend your mind,
A poor souls fate we must unwind

All three gather around the cauldron and pull items from their sacks

HELGA
The fingers of a baby abandoned to die

HELGA dumps them in the cauldron, and a puff of steam belches out of the cauldron

HILDA
Festering meat from a possum’s thigh

HILDA dumps it in - another belch

HARPA
Nightshade planted on Hallow’s eve

Dump...belch

HELGA
The tears of a widow, shed as she grieved

Dump...belch

HILDA
Fang of an adder that struck a priest

Dump...belch

HARPA
Organically farmed wormwood brought from the east.

HILDA and HELGA look at each other upon hearing this.

HARPA starts to dump it in....HILDA stops her hand with her cane-stick

HILDA
Wait....what didst thou say?

HARPA
Ummmm.....organically farmed wormwood brought from the east.

HILDA
Why not regular old wormwood?

HELGA
From the east?

HARPA
This tis much better....for twas grown without pesticides or chemicals. So tis better for the environment, and healthier to eat.

HILDA
Wormwood is a poison...eating it doth kill a man in minutes.

HARPA
All the more reason to go organic....why wouldst one want more toxins in something already so lethal?

HILDA
Enough of this. I didst agree when you wanted to use only free-range newt in our potions....

HELGA
And when thou didst say the cauldron should only be lit after 7pm on hot days to reduce airborne pollutants...

HILDA
AND when thou didst say we needed to stop making the gingerbread houses we use to entrap children out of refined sugar, and use the raw brown stuff instead...

HELGA
Looks like bad stucco.

HILDA
But this is beyond all measure of reason.

HARPA
Good Hilda, we must consider said things....we doth live in the woods and useth the plants of the earth for all our work....we shouldst be the first to consider about what servers environment and the people the best.

HELGA
I miss serving people, especially to other people.

HILDA glares at HELGA, who smiles and quietly slinks back behind HILDA

HILDA
Harpa, I hat a business to run here. People doth pay us to put curses upon their enemies, to make people fall in love with them, or foretell their futures. They carest not if the person we turn into a frog for them gets cancer

HARPA
Hath they said that to you?

HELGA
Frog cancer tis so sad

HILDA
They doth not NEED to say it! People do not have other people turned into frogs because they wisheth them health and happiness!!!

HELGA
Yeah, but frog cancer tis sooooooo sad

HILDA smacks HELGA in the head

HILDA
Who’s side art thou on???

HARPA
I know it doth cost more but...

HILDA
Costs? What dost thou mean, cost? What didst thou pay for that?

HARPA
Twas just a little bit more than....

HILDA
WHAT DIDST THOU PAY FOR IT?

HARPA
Three dracmas.

HILDA fumes

HARPA (CONT)
Tis not too bad

HILDA
Regular wormwood is free!!! Thou mayst go and pick it up off the ground! It doth grow wild in the forest!

HARPA
True but who doth know what it hath been treated with, or what sort of pesticides are on it.

HILDA
Tis free!!! It could be buried in pig poop, and WE WOULD NOT CARE!!! We put it in a boiling cauldron and make potions with it! POTIONS THAT DO EVIL THINGS TO PEOPLE!!!!

HARPA
Surely thou wouldst not want a potion to taste like pig poop?

HILDA
WHY NOT? TIS AN EVIL POTION!!!! GIVEN TO SOMEONE THAT SOMEONE ELSE DOESN’T LIKE TO SOMETHING EVIL TO THEM!!! WHY SHOULDN’T IT NOT TASTE EVIL???

HELGA
Pig poop doth taste more nasty than it doth taste evil.

HILDA
THOU ART AN IDIOT!!!

Everyone pauses a moment....catching their breath. HARPA finally breaks the silence, resigned

HARPA
Fine....no more shall I bring organic ingredients for potion-making.

HILDA
Good

HARPA
I shalt stop suggesting uses for the rest of the lizard after we use it’s tongue for curses.

HILDA
Thank you

HARPA
And never more shall I bring up all the reasons we shouldst fly hemp-brooms instead of straw-brooms ever again, even though straw tis a resource intensive crop and has to be shipped in from...

HILDA
KNOCKST IT OFF!

HARPA
Sorry...old habit

HILDA
Darest not let it happen again. Now, mayst we finish this potion and go home?

HARPA isn’t happy, but recovers herself and goes back to the cauldron

HARPA
Wormwood, that may or may not be organic, brought from the east

Dump....belch

HILDA
Wing of bat that has freshly fed

HELGA
Rust from the axe that takes men’s heads....

A knight, SIR ELDRIDGE, enters carrying a torch in one hand an a sword in the other wearing chain mail, a helmet, and a tunic with a royal looking crest on it

SIR ELDRIDGE
Halt Hags! Stay where thou art, and movest not!!!

The sisters all freeze, scared of SIR ELDRIDGE

SIR ELDRIDGE (CONT)
I am from his Majesty’s Environmental Protection Agency. We hath heard rumors of potions being illegally dumped in these woods. Dost know of such a thing?

All of the witches respond with “oh no, haven’t heard of anything like that”, “didn’t see anyone dumping”, “how rude”, “the nerve of some people”, etc.

SIR ELDRIDGE (CONT)
His Majesty’s fish pond hath been fouled with a frog-making potion that didst smell of pig poop......

Again the witches respond over the of each other “of how awful”, “how inconsiderate”, etc.)

SIR ELDRIDGE (CONT)
Pray tell hags, what manner of potion be this?

HILDA
Tis but a generic potion....more like a potion base

HELGA
Potion starter

Sir Eldridge sniffs it

SIR ELDRIDGE
Methinks it doth smell vaguely of pig droppings

HARPA
Oh no kind sir, you must be mistaken. For this potion doth use only organic ingredients.

Sir Eldridge considers this for a moment

SIR ELDRIDGE
Doth not organic ingredients cost a great deal more?

HARPA
Aye, they do, but we feel the result be worth the price, and we doth simply charge those buying potions slightly more.

SIR ELDRIDGE
In truth, I’d pay more for an organic potion. Sir Halston didst purchase a common frog-making potion which he gave to his enemy, the Black Knight of Leeds. Turned the Knight into a frog, AND didst give him frog cancer.

HELGA
How sad

SIR ELDRIDGE
‘Tis true. Sir Halston didst ends his days wracked with guilt. Pray thee, let me watch thee make thy organic potion.

HARPA
Thou art welcome to watch Sir knight, is he not good sisters.

HELGA and HILDA answer “oh yes”, “sure”, etc. HILDA looks annoyed at HARPA, but has no choice but to go on

HARPA
Organically farmed wormwood, brought from the east

HILDA
Eye of.....free range...newt

SIR ELDRIDGE
Dost thou keep the rest of the newt after using only it’s eye?

HELGA
Aye, we make newt bread out of it

SIR ELDRIDGE
My mother didst make the most wondrous newt bread in my youth, with walnuts and raisins!

FADE OUT.