Mad Maudlin

Mad Maudlin haunts both London Above, though all the police know to look out for her. They say she is a doxie carrying a terrible form of clap that must be contained, before it spreads to the city. They consider her some deranged Typhoid Mary of prostitutes, although the reality is much stranger: her kiss alone can make men mad, and the number of men who occupy the shriek-filled halls of Bedlam Hospital due to her affections is terrifying to contemplate.

In truth, everyone knows that Mad Maudlin ("Maud," for short) is looking for the one whose kiss made her mad - Tom O'Bedlam, the first inmate of the terrible Bedlam hospital. Every so often, she mistakes some poor fool for her dear Tom and stalks him mercilessly, not understanding why he won't come and love her, until she corners him and kisses him...and realizes the truth. In days, the man is stark raving mad - one of her "Bedlam Boys," whose madnesses are as myriad and different as they, save for one commonality: slavish devotion to their dear Miss Maud.

Once she realizes her mistake, however, she has little use for the madmen she makes, though she does tolerate them hanging about. Usually, once they've spent some time away from her, they come to their senses, although they are never quite the same again.

Mad Maudlin spends most of her UnderLondon time in the Infernum, known for its fiery gin houses and the mists that she claims eases the burning in her mind.

Bedlam Boys

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

I now repent that ever
Poor Tom was so disdain-ed
My wits are lost since him I crossed
Which makes me thus go chained

I went down to Satan's kitchen
For to get me food one morning
And there I got souls piping hot
All on the spit a-turning

There I took up a caldron
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
For to cut mince pies from children's thighs
And feed them to the fairies

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

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

And when 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

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

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