From Goldilox; Mad Tom of Bedlam. Dave Moran writes;

Nic [Jones] and I and mandolin/guitar player Nigel Patterson made up the Halliard. We were looking to develop some new music and we took the advice of song- writer Leslie Shepard. We decided to add tunes to Broadsides that we discovered, uncovered or collected – we checked out the Harkness Collection at Preston and the collections in Manchester etc. We also used Ashton's Street Ballads and Victorian Street Ballads ( Henderson) and on a couple of occasions we dipped into Thomas D'Urfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy. That is where we found Mad Maudlin (Tom of Bedlam or the Boys of Bedlam).

Nic and I wrote all the tunes together usually sitting in the front of the Mini and singing and working out tunes as we drove – as the mandolin was the smallest instrument and Nigel was in the back, he always played the tunes. 'Jones and Moran' wrote a heap of songs like this including Lancashire Lads, Going for a Soldier Jenny, Miles Weatherhill, Calico printers Clerk etc. We wrote the tunes to fit the words and sometimes added or altered words, as in The Workhouse Boy.

So Nic and I wrote the tune to D'Urfeys words of Mad Maudlin – audiences were confused and stunned – it was very surreal... We did a booking in the Midlands and an unaccompanied foursome called the Farriers loved the song and asked if they could sing it unaccompanied. We said sure – they were very good a bit like the Young Tradition. I believe that is how it got into the mainstream. We may well have recorded it [for a second Saga LP called Heroes & Villains] but there were royalty issues and now sadly the tape is lost. There were some good songs on it. I actually have Nigel's written top line music and chords over the top, and words, to many of our songs because we were going to put a songbook out to back up that LP.

From Wikipedia; "Tom o' Bedlam" is the name of an anonymous poem in the "mad song" genre, written in the voice of a homeless "Bedlamite". The poem was probably composed at the beginning of the 17th century; in How to Read and Why, Harold Bloom called it "the greatest anonymous lyric in the [English] language." The original ballad was popular enough that another poem was written in reply, "Mad Maudlin's Search" or "Mad Maudlin's Search for Her Tom of Bedlam" or "Bedlam Boys". It was apparently first published in 1720 by Thomas d'Urfey in his Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy. "Maudlin" was a form of Mary Magdalene.