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{ Saturday, September 20, 2003 }

Tom O'Bedlam's Song

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

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.

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.

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.

With a thought I took for Maudlin,
And a cruse of cockle pottage,
With a thing thus tall, Sky bless you all,
I befell into this dotage.

I slept not since the Conquest,
Till then I never waked,
Till the naked boy of love where I lay
Me found and stript me naked.

I know more than Apollo,
For oft when he lies sleeping
I see the stars at mortal wars
In the wounded welkin weeping.

The moon embrace her shepherd,
And the queen of love her warrior
While the first doth horn the star of morn
And the next the heavenly farrier.

Of thirty years have I
Twice twenty been enragéd
And of forty been three times fifteen
In durance soundly cagéd

On the lordly lofts of Bedlam
With stubble soft and dainty,
Brave bracelets strong, sweet whips, ding-dong,
With wholesome hunger plenty.

When I short have shorn my sour-face
And swigged my horny barrel
In an oaken inn, I pound my skin
As a suit of gilt apparel.

The moon's my constant mistress,
And the lonely owl my marrow;
The flaming drake and the night crow make
Me music to my sorrow.

The spirits white as lightning
Would on my travels guide me
The stars would shake and the moon would quake
Whenever they espied me.

And then that I'll be murdering
The Man in the Moon to the powder
His staff I'll break, his dog I'll shake
And there'll howl no demon louder.

With a host of furious fancies,
Whereof I am commander,
With a burning spear and a horse of air
To the wilderness I wander.

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.

LINK | 5:44 PM | TB

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{ COMMENTS }

Wow! Look at all the extra verses! I'll compare to my Oak Ash & Thorn songbook when I get home and see if they've got any you don't.

And I'll give you the words to Nottamun Town, another lovely dark nonsense song.

Dinah | September 22, 2003 1:21 PM

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That's the Robert Graves version!!! Yikes!!! Another Gravesmaniac at large!!!

aa | September 22, 2003 2:04 PM

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Sorry, got distracted for the better part of a week, there.

Oak Ash & Thorn have very slight variations in wording in a couple verses; same meaning, different phrasing.

Their version doesn't have this verse 3, 5-13, or 16-17 and they close with a repeat of verse 1. They say they picked it up from Steeleye Span and that the name Maudlin is a corrupted pronunciation of Magdalen.

Nottamun Town

In Nottamun Town, in Nottamun Town
Not a soul would look up, not a soul would look down
Not a soul would look up, not a soul would look down
To show me my way to fair Nottamun Town

I bought me a horse, 'twas called the grey mare
Grey mane and grey tail, and green stripe down her back
Grey mane and grey tail, and green stripe down her back
And there weren't a hair on her that be not coal black

She stood so still, threw me to the dirt
She teared my hide and she bruised my shirt
From saddle to stirrup, I mounted again
And on my ten toes I rode over the plain

And when I got there, no one could I see
They all stood around just a-looking at me
I called for a quaff to drive gladness away
To stifle the dust, for it rained the whole day

And the king and the queen, and the company more
Come a-riding behind and a-walking before
Come a stark naked drummer boy beating his drum
With his heels in his bosom come marching along.

Sat down on a hard, hot cold frozen stone
Ten thousand stood round me yet I was alone
Took my heart in my hand for to keep myself warm,
Ten thousand was drownded that never was born

In Nottamun Town, in Nottamun Town
Not a soul would look up, not a soul would look down
Not a soul would look up, not a soul would look down
To show me my way to fair Nottamun Town

Apparently this song might have been lost had not Jean Ritchie remembered it from her childhood in Appalachia.

It reminds me a bit of the book Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban.

Dinah Sanders | September 28, 2003 3:36 PM

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[Nottamun Town]
> Apparently this song might have been lost had not
> Jean Ritchie remembered it from her childhood in
> Appalachia.

I think not. It was collected by Cecil Sharp and Maud
Karpeles in 1916-1918. It's in their book of English
folk songs from the southern Appalachians. The notes
(to their abridged collection of 80 songs) attribute it
to Jean Ritchie's sister and cousin.

[note I have used a fake email address, see my website
for the real one]

Jack Campin | October 24, 2003 4:25 PM

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