"For to see Mad Tom of Bedlam
Ten thousand miles I traveled
Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes
To save her shoes from gravel. "

On a storm riddled night , during the scream of a winter storm, a woman was found at the doors of the Sisters of Blessings Convent. Taken in, her belly round and rippling in the event of childbirth, she fought all during the rage of the stormy night to rid her body of the babe that wanted so badly to be born.
The Sister's went about thier duties of prayer and aid, assisting the tormented woman until at last, her body torn and depleated, the girl child was pulled from her womb and gave it's first sputtering cry. As the Mother Superior washed the new mother's pale brow, she felt her blood run cold as the dying woman spoke a single word.."DarkShadow".

"I went down to Satan's kitchen
To break my fast one morning
And there I got souls piping hot
All on the spit a-turning."

As the sisters looked to the child, leaving the Mothers still body on the bed, a shadow opened and the body was stolen away. Abandoned, alone in the world,the child was taken in by the Sister's to live and raise in the convent. Bequeathing her with the name Magdelina, the Mother Superior kept the the last whispered truth of her mother from the child in hopes of shielding the girl from the dark curse of the unholy Family.

Growing up, young Maggie gave new life to the convent, a quiet child, she seemed to have a yearning for learning, and was taught the scriptures and paths of the Holy Sister's. Through the long years, the girl grew in the quiet murmmer of prayer and simple living that the Sister’s embraced. In this Holy place, she flourished and found the desire to take the vows of the church for herself, and so at 14 became a noviate to bend herself fully to the strictures of the Church, learning the deeper path’s to becoming a new Bride to the All holy. On the coming of her ageday, Maggie went to the Mother Superior, and knelt to the aged woman she has come to think of as her Grandmother, bowing her head as the age ridden hands carefully cut away the long thick pale hair that had been allowed to grow, then shaved her scalp in preperation for spending the next three days in silent prayer before taking final vows to the Order.

"There I took a cauldron
Where boiled ten thousand harlots
Though full of flame I drank the same
To the health of all such varlets.

Retiring to the small bare cell she had taken , Maggie knelt in prayer, long used to ignoring the discomfort of damp chill and the sore ach of bent knees, she bowed her head in prayer, seeking guidance from the All Knowing. Seeking deep within herself for the seed of faith that had been encouraged to grow in her from her birth.
As she submerged herself into prayer, she heard a voice. Shivering in anticipation she answered within her mind, thinking that the voice was given from the guidance of the archangels, and she called it in opening the doors to her youthful soul to the warm voice that called her name. On the third day, screams were heard echoing along the quiet contemplative halls of the convent. Ragged shrieks that brought the startled nuns from their cells, from prayer and from study.. They came to the door of Magdelina’s cell and what met their horrifed gaze what a scene from the pages of nightmare.

Nailed to the stone wall of the cell was their Maggie. Dark blood pouring from the ragged wounds that festered around the obscene stakes fashioned from the large shattered crucifix that had hung over the narrow cot. Much changed was the innocent quiet girl..her body bared to all eyes, wide spread thighs streaked with the bright trickles of blood from her shattered maiden head, and mindless screams pouring from her arched throat.
On the mother Superior’s order, the frightened nun’s helped to bring Maggie down off the wall.

” My staff has murdered giants
My bag a long knife carries
To cut mince pies from children's thighs
For which to feed the fairies.
No gypsy, slut or doxy
Shall win my mad Tom from me
I'll weep all night, with stars I'll fight
The fray shall well become me.
From the hag and hungry goblin
That into rags would rend ye,
All the sprites that stand by the naked man
In the book of moons, defend ye.
The spirits white as lightening
Would on my travels guide me
The stars would shake and the moon would quake
Whenever they espied me. “

Long years have passed since that fateful night. Long years with the taunt of a song that has followed her . Long years since the soldiers came to the broken doors of the Convent and found the scattered and broken bodies of the Nuns that were laid out in a pattern seen only from the choir loft. The shattered remains of women laid out in bloodied letters to leave the horrific and misunderstood word
Bedlam

”By a knight of ghosts and shadows
I summoned am to tourney
Ten leagues beyond the wide world's end-
Methinks it is no journey.

So drink to Tom of Bedlam
Go fill the seas in barrels
I'll drink it all, well brewed with gall
And maudlin drunk I'll quarrel”

With many a muttered word, and many a sanity flown gaze, Mad Maudlin has come to this land

And may the Gods protect any that come to her attention…..

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.