THE SORCERERS

Based on a story by William Butler Yeats

19.2.2023
2nd Draft

Eero Lehtinen
Patric Gregg

lehtin01@st.amu.cz
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1 INT. RENTED ROOM IN A 19TH CENTURY INN - LATE NIGHT 1

Text: Ireland, late 19th century
W. B. YEATS (mid 20's) sits by his desk. He is writing the
manuscript of The Celtic Twilight.
YEATS (V.O.)
The dark powers cling about us, it
is said, day and night, like bats
upon an old tree; and that we do not
hear more of them is merely because
the darker kinds of magic have been
but little practiced.
The desk is covered with papers. Among them, Yeats' notebook
of magic that is illustrated with colourful symbolic images.
Title: The Sorcerers – A Story of a Personal Experience by
William Butler Yeats

2 EXT. MOUNTAINS OF RURAL IRELAND - EVENING TWILIGHT 2

Yeats travels in the misty landscape. A remote cabin looms in
the distance.
YEATS (V.O.)
I have indeed come across very few
persons in Ireland who try to
communicate with evil powers, and
the few I have met keep their
purpose and practice wholly hidden
from those among whom they live.

3 INT/EXT. A BRIGHT, SUNLIT SPACE - FLASHBACK 3

Yeats is having a conversation with a MILL CLERK (early
20's). In the background, the sounds of grinding millstones
and villagers at work is heard. The clerk whispers to Yeats.
MILL CLERK (O.S.)
Come to us and we will show you
spirits who will talk to you face to
face, and in shapes as solid and
heavy as our own.
The mill clerk is gone. Yeats notices a little girl looking
at him with fearful eyes. She is hiding behind a stack of
grain sacks, with a bunny rabbit in her lap.
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4 INT. REMOTE MOUNTAIN CABIN - EVENING TWILIGHT 4

Yeats enters a room that is draped entirely in black and lit
dimly with an oil lamp. In the middle of the room is a small
table with ritualistic objects. Next to it a wicker basket
that appears to be moving slightly catches his attention.
YEATS (V.O.)
I said "I will come to you, but I
will not permit myself to become
entranced, and will therefore know
whether these shapes you talk of are
any the more to be touched and felt
by the ordinary senses than are
those I talk of."
From the other side of the room a pair of piercing eyes are
staring at Yeats. It is a HIGH SORCERER (70's) of some kind.
He is entirely covered with a black cloak and a pointy hat
that covers his entire face.
The mill clerk enters the room. He is also wearing a black
cloak, but has his face uncovered. He puts a similar cloak on
Yeats and guides him to sit down in front of the high
sorcerer. Then he proceeds to light some incense and dim the
light from the oil lamp, and seats himself.
The haze of the incense fills the room, its faint glow
illuminating their faces. Yeats looks at the objects on the
table: a large bowl, an old book, a skull covered with
painted symbols, two crossed daggers, and small quern stones
for grinding herbs.
The high sorcerer opens the basket and takes out a black
rooster. He stabs it with one of the daggers and drains its
blood to the large bowl on the table. Then he opens the book
and begins a guttural chant in a strange language.
Incense smoke dances in the air. Yeats is focusing on it
intensely. Time passes and loses its meaning.
The high sorcerer shifts tone in the chant. Yeats looks at
him and sees the high sorcerer staring at him. He feels drawn
to those eyes.
The mill clerk gasps suddenly and points at a dark corner.
MILL CLERK
O god! O god! I see it! A great
serpent!
Yeats looks at the corner. He sees nothing but senses
something approaching him at the floor. It goes past him,
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towards the mill clerk, whose eyes roll back revealing the
whites as he falls into an ecstatic trance.
The high sorcerer keeps staring at Yeats, who feels a
stinging pain in his head as if the gaze was malignant. He
tries to look away but the eyes seem to always reach him.
YEATS
I want it to stop! Turn on the
lights.
The high sorcerer doesn’t budge. The mill clerk shakes and
drools in his trance state. The pain in Yeats's head grows
stronger and he feels something like malicious spirits flying
at him again.
YEATS
Stop!
He gets up and reaches for the oil lamp – and sees that the
room has expanded and that the table and the sorcerers are
far away, out of his reach.
He runs for the fleeting table but gets sucked into a
darkness as the room loses its proportions.

5 INT. REMOTE MOUNTAIN CABIN - MOMENTS LATER 5

The mill clerk lights the oil lamp and helps Yeats to get up
from the floor where he is laying, stupefied. The room looks
normal again. The high sorcerer sits at his chair, hanging
his head as if he was heavily exhausted.
Yeats untangles himself from the heavy black cloak and is
about to leave. On his way out he changes his mind and comes
to the high sorcerer.
YEATS
What would happen if one of your
spirits had overpowered me?
The high sorcerer sits unmoved.

6 INT. RENTED ROOM IN A 19TH CENTURY INN - LATE NIGHT 6

Back to Yeats at his desk. He writes feverishly:
YEATS (V.O.)
I asked about the origin of his
sorcery, but got little of
importance, except that he had
learned it from his father. He would
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not tell me more, for he had, it

appeared, taken a vow of secrecy.
Yeats sets down his pen and takes off his glasses. The
twilight of dawn looms through a window. Yeats goes to his
washbasin in the corner of the room and looks at his tired
face in the mirror.

YEATS (V.O.)
What would happen if one of your
spirits had overpowered me?

7 INT. REMOTE MOUNTAIN CABIN - CONTINUOUS 7

The high sorcerer answers to Yeats.
HIGH SORCERER
You would go out of this room, with
his character added to your own.

8 INT. RENTED ROOM IN A 19TH CENTURY INN - CONTINUOUS 8

Yeats stands by the mirror. He leers over the washbasin,
sinks his hands in the water – and throws a splash of bright
red blood at his face. He gasps in horror and looks in the
mirror.
His terrified face stares back at him soaked with water but
no blood.
As he stands there looking into the mirror, the first beams
of sunlight begins to reflect from it, making the drops of
water on his face shimmer.
Text: "The Bright Powers are always beautiful and desirable,
and the Dim Powers are now beautiful, now quaintly grotesque,
but the Dark Powers express their unbalanced natures in
shapes of ugliness and horror." – W. B. Yeats
THE END.