Bedlam Boys
aka Mad Maudlin's Search
As performed by The Reelies on Myth and Memory
Lyrics and music traditional

To find me Tom of Bedlam
Ten Thousand Leagues I've travelled (years I'll travel)
Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes
For to spare her shoes from gravel

Still I sing bonny boys, bonny mad boys
Bedlam boys are bonny.
For they all go bare and they live by the air
And they want no drink nor money.

I now repent that ever
Poor Tom was so disdained
Me wits I lost since him I crossed
Which makes me thus go chained

I went by Plutos (satans or Saturns) kitchen
For to beg me food one mornin'
It's there I got souls piping hot
All on their spits a-turnin'

There I took up a cauldron
Where I boiled ten thousand harlots
So full of flame, I drank that same
To the health of all such varlets

A spirit hot as lightning
Did on me journey guide me
The sun did shake and the pale moon quake
Whenever they espied me.

Me staff has murdered giants
Me pack a long knife carries
To cut mince pies from children's thighs
With which to feed the fairies

And when that I do murdering
The man in the moon to a powder
His staff I'll break, his dog I'll shake
There'll howl no demon louder

No gypsy, slut or doxy
Can win me mad Tom from me
I'll weep all night, with the stars I'll fight
For the fray shall well become me

So drink to Tom of Bedlam
Go pour the sea in barrels
And I'll drink it all well brewed with gall
Then maudlin drunk I'll quarrel

More verses (Thanks to Stephen Griswold):

My horn is made of thunder
I stole it out of heaven
The rainbow there is this I wear
For which I thence was driven

And now that I have gotten
A lease than doomsday longer
To live on earth with some in mirth
Ten whales shall find my hunger

and an alternate to the "Cauldron" verse...

Then I took up a cauldron
Where I boil'd ten thousand 'Tornies
'Twas full of flame, yet I drank the same
And wished them happy journeys

alternate chorus:

But I will find Bonny Maud, merry mad Maud
And seek whate'er betides her
Yet I will love beneath or above
The dirty earth that hides her

Background from Daniel Womack: Here below are lines I found which could be from Giles Earle His Book (1615), a manuscript collection of lyrics.

Tom O' Bedlam's Song

From the hagg and hungrie goblin,
That into raggs would rend ye,
And the spirit that stands by the naken man
In the Book of Moones - defend ye!
That of your five sound senses
You never be forsaken,
Nor wander from your selves with Tom
Abroad to beg your bacon.

While I doe sing "any foode, any feeding,
Feedinge, drinke or clothing,"
Come dame or maid, be not afraid,
Poor Tom will injure nothing.

Of thirty bare years have I
Twice twenty been enraged,
And of forty been three times fifteen
In durance soundly caged.
On the lordly lofts of Bedlam,
With stubble soft and dainty,
Brave bracelets strong, sweet whips ding-dong,
With wholesome hunger plenty.

With a thought I took for Maudlin
And a cruse of cockle pottage,
With a thing thus tall, skie blesse you all,
I befell into this dotage.
I slept not since the Conquest,
Till then I never waked
Till the roguish boy of love where I lay
Me found and stript me naked.

When I short have shorne my sowre face
And swigged my horny barrel,
In an oaken in I pound my skin
As a suit of gilt apparel.
The moon's my constant Mistrisse,
And the lofty owl my morrowe,
The flaming Drake and the Nightcrow make
Me music to my sorrow

The palsie plagues my pulses
When I prigg your pigs or pullen,
Your culvers take, or matchless make
Your Chanticleers, or sullen.
When I want provant, with Humfrie
I sup, and when benighted
I repose in Powles with waking souls
Yet never am affrighted.

I know more than Apollo,
For oft, when he lies sleeping I see the stars at bloody wars
In the wounded welkin weeping,
The moone embrace her shepherd
And the queen of Love her warrior,
While the first doth horne the star of morne,
And the next the heavenly Farrier.

The Gispsie Snap and Pedro
Are none of Tom's companions
The punk I skorne and the cut purse sworne
And the roaring boyes bravadoe.
The meek, the white, the gentle,
Me handle touch and spare not
But those that crosse Tom Rynosseros
Do what the panther dare not.

With a host of furious fancies
Wherefo I am commander,
With a burning spear and a horse of air,
To the wilderness I wander.
By a knight of ghostes and shadowes
I summon'd am to tourney
Ten leagues beyond the wild world's end
Methinks it is not journey.

According to Dick Eney, Bedlam was the popular slurred name for the Hospital of Saint Mary of Bethlehem, in London, for male mental patients. The corresponding institution for women was named after Mary Magdalen, which slurred to "Maudlin." Bedlamite songs were extremely popular in the 16th and 17th centuries. "Mad Maudlin's search for Her Tom of Bedlam", popularized by Tom Gilfellon, was published by Thomas D'Urfey in his "Pills to Purge Melancholy" (1720). Related songs are to be found in Jack Lindsay's "Loving Mad Tom" (1927).
Powles, mentioned in the song, is Saint Paul's Cathedral. Tom is sleeping among the crypts. It is clear that Tom's madness is due to the French Disease and that he commits beastiality.

Another explanation I have heard is that maudlin is another term for a prostitute. Tom did "cruse of cockle pottage", cockle being another term for the labia minora. Thus he befell into this "dotage" or rather, madness. So it is to be thought that this too could be a song warning men of the dangers of submitting to the seductions of these maudlin women.

More verse explanation from Dick Eney,

The flaming Drake is a flaming dragon. Some feel this is an astronomical reference to the constellation Dracol it may be a hallucination.
The "morroe" may be the Morrow-Priest, the priest who says the first Mass of the day. The Nightcrow is a bird (appropriately dressed in priestly black) that wakes Tom and is the closest he gets to a midnight or dawn Mass.
Apollo is a Graeco-Roman sun god; Tom knows more than the sun, for he is awake during the night, when the sun doesn't see what the stars and planets are up to. In mythology, the moon goddess is married to the morning star but embraces a shepherd boy and Venus embraces Mars yet she is married to Vulcan. Thus both put "horns" of cuckoldry on their husbands.
The "welkin" is an archaic word for the arch of the sky. Tom is hallucinating the acts of the gods of mythology, indicating that the author of this lyric was certainly educated.

The verses sung by most Renaissance Festival performers today actually come from "Mad Maudlin's Song" which is considered a different song entirely from "Tom of Bedlam's Song". So while you could date Tom's song at 1615, Maudlin's song comes out about a century later. Either way it's a very old song and it's fun to hear as well as play.

If there is anything I've missed, any information that you know to be incorrect, or if there is a song you've heard on the podcast that you would like to see included, please do not hesitate to contact me at lyrics@renaissancefestivalmusic.com.