Title: per-insanity-msg
Subject: Insane personas, period insanity.
Author: Edited by Mark Harris
Last saved by: Mark S. Harris
Keywords: persona, insanity, attitudes, medieval, SCA

per-insanity-msg - 4/17/08

Insane personas, insanity in period.

NOTE: See also the files: persona-art, per-lepers-msg, p-medicine-msg, p-manners-msg, Inquisitn-Gme-art, religion-msg, heretics-msg, jesters-msg.

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    Mark S. Harris                  AKA:  THLord Stefan li Rous
                                          Stefan at florilegium.org
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From: DRS at UNCVX1.BITNET ("Dennis R. Sherman")
Date: 15 Nov 91 02:54:00 GMT
Organization: The Internet

Someone asked about psychiatric references for our period.  It just
happens that I'm working in a book that has some references that may be
of interest.  The source:

Cockayne, Rev. Thomas Oswald (tr.); _Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and
Starcraft of Early England, being a collection of documents for the most
part never before printed, illustrating the history of science in this
country before the Norman conquest._; London: Longman, Green, Longman,
Roberts, and Green, 1865.

I'm currently in volume 2 (of 3), which contains the "leechdoms", which
are prescriptions for solutions to medical problems.  The manuscript
(which is transcribed [Old English] on one page, with a facing page
modern English translation) is dated from the 10th Century, probably
about 960 CE.  Some excerpts about psychiatry (sort of :-) :

    For a fiend sick man, when a devil possesses the man or controls him
    from within with disease; a spew drink, lupin, bishopwort, henbane,
    cropleek; pound together, add ale for a liquid, let stand for a
    night, add fifty libcorns, and holy water.  A drink for a fiend sick
    man, to be drunk out of a church bell; githrife, cynoglossum, yarrow,
    lupin, betony, attorlothe, cassock, flower de luce, fennel, church
    lichen, lichen of Christs mark, lovage; work up the drink off clear
    ale, sing seven masses over the worts, add garlic and holy water,
    and drip the drink into every drink which he will subsequently
    drink, and let him sing the psalm, Beati immaculati, and Exurgat,
    and Salvum me fac, deus, and then let him drink the drink out of a
    church bell, and let the mass priest after the drink sing this over
    him, Domine, sancte pater omnipotens.  For a lunatic; costmary,
    goutweed, lupin, betony, attorlothe, cropleek, field gentian, hove,
    fennel; let masses be sung over, let it be wrought of foreign ale and
    of holy water; let him drink this drink for nine mornings, at every
    one fresh, and no other liquid that is thick and still, and let him
    give alms, and earnestly pray God for his mercies. For the
    phrenzied; bishopwort, lupin, bonewort, everfern, githrife,
    elecampane, when day and night divide, then sing thou in the church
    litanies, that is, the names of the hallows, and the Paternoster;
    with the song go thou, that thou mayest be near the worts, and go
    thrice about them, and when thou takest them go again to church with
    the same song, and sing twelve masses over hem, and over all the
    drinks which belong to the disease, in honour of the twelve
    apostles.

                                 lxvi.

    Against mental vacancy and against folly; put into ale bishopwort,
    lupins, betony, the southern fennel, nepte, water agrimony, cockle,
    marche, then let drink.  For idiotcy and folly, put into ale,
    cassia, and lupins, bishopwort, alexanders, githrife, fieldmore, and
    holy water; then let him drink.

     Robyyan Torr d'Elandris                Dennis R. Sherman
     Kapellenberg, Windmaster's Hill        Chapel Hill, NC
     Atlantia                               drs at uncvx1.bitnet
                                            drs at uncvx1.oit.unc.edu

Subject: fantasy personas
Date: 12 Jun 92 
From: trifid at agora.uucp (Roadster Racewerks)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Organization: Open Communications Forum

Although it is about a century OOP, I do remember one very amusing account of
a head of the Fraser clan who, in late middle age, decided he was a hen *turkey*
and arrived in his coach at the site of a fellow Laird's banquet sitting on a
clutch of *eggs*, waiting for them to hatch. He refused to leave his "nest"
until his "babies" hatched. The response was to convince him he needed to
answer a call of nature, and take the eggs while he was gone, replacing them
with baby chicks and bits of shell. (Raising "exotic" fowl was a popular hobby
of the wealthy in those days..) The Laird was pleased his babies had "hatched"
and went in to the banquet a happy man...  :-)

Now such tolerance might only have been reserved to nobles, but perhaps not. In
any case, it was a pragmatic solution, even if it did nothing to restore his
ability to recognize reality.

Moreach NicMaolain
trifid at agora.rain.com

From: julifolo at ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (watkins julia k)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Vampires
Date: 30 Mar 1994 13:17:49 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana

BTW, regarding lunatics in period, I've been working on a special ed
book at work in which an anecdote is told about Martin Luther. In his
travels, he encountered an obviously mentally handicapped youth. Since
the mad have no souls and are just pieces of carrion ready to be
inhabited by the devil, Luther advised that the youth be taken down
to the river and drowned (he wasn't, and Luther got mighty upset).

And Martin Luther *is* definitely period.

Yrs, Folo

From: dmeehan at huey.csun.edu (Dan Meehan)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: How to create an insane persona...
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 17:05:56
Organization: CSU Northridge
Keywords: nutcase

In article <3c2n13$3nj at hermes.louisville.edu> cesnyd01 at vulcan.spd.louisville.edu (Cris Snyder) writes:

>I have a question - I would like to add a second persona, one who is slightly,
>..um...'not right'.  My question to the NetKnownWorld is this...how would you 
>handle this?

1.  Employ frequent lapses of memory.
2.  Introduce non-sequiturs into conversations.  
     Choose 2 or 3 non-sequiturs and come up with a way to obsessivly follow
     each to some horrifying (to you) and banal (to others) conclusion.
3.  Look dirty. (I would suggest not washing for several days, but this may
                        be going a little too far!)
4.  Beg for alms.  Use this as a means of engaging others in the above points.

>I don't have plans on doing anything stupid or dangerous, just weird.  My
>current persona is kinda flat and boring (reminicent of me) and I think that
>this would add a bit of spice to things.  I was going to introduce him as my 
>persona's  twin brother (whom is never around when I am around, and visa versa)

>I guess the other question is - how did mideval folx deal with others who >didn't have all their eggs in one basket.  Did they lock all crazy people up or 
>let them loose if they didn't cause trouble? etc.

They probably locked up the dangerous ones, and let the ones who were
safe wander about.  Just a guess - I haven't studied this at all.
(I just know how to be crazy, that's all!)  :)

Damian von Baden
Altavia/Caid

From: nuksbab at oak.grove.iup.edu
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: How to create an insane persona...
Date: 8 Dec 1994 02:20:08 GMT
Organization: Indiana U of Pennsylvania

In article <3c2n13$3nj at hermes.louisville.edu>, cesnyd01 at vulcan.spd.louisville.edu (Cris Snyder) writes:
>>
>I guess the other question is - how did mideval folx deal with others who didn't
>have all their eggs in one basket.  Did they lock all crazy people up or let
>them loose if they didn't cause trouble? etc.

Incidentally, I've done a bit of research on this subject (some people have too
much free time and all that....)  one of the better books that i've found is
called "Madness and Civilization" by Michel Foucault.  Hes a post-
structuralist/deconstructionist/historian writer. (If you're into this sort of
thing, you know what i mean...  With out sounding like a book review, let me
say this, he covers period dealings with the insane in a rather well done
format......(ie:  DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH :)  )     Just a sugg. 

-   Colgrim

From: andwinkl at bashful.cc.utexas.edu (A. L. Winkler)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: medieval insanity
Date: 9 Dec 1994 10:04:48 -0600
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin; Austin, Texas

	At least in the places where insanity met sanctity, the 
boundaries could be very fuzzy indeed.  THomas of Cantimpre wrote about a 
woman named Christina Mirabilis, who among other things managed to 
imitate the Resurrection (rose from what she claimed was "dead" at least 
twice; nobody disputed this) and went around, when alive, engaging in 
what seems to us bizarre behavior.  She would rip other people's sleeves 
or cotte off; she would stand in the icy River Meuse; she would live for 
months in the forest, subsisting on her own miraculous lactation; she 
could not abide the smell of men and spent a lot of time "flying" up to 
the roof of the cathedral and the tops of trees.

	Interestingly, at first she was considered at worst insane and at 
best a public nuisance, despite the fact that many of the things she had 
performed (living in the forest, standing in the river, and one revival) 
are all associated with sainthood.  Her sisters, however, saw a young 
woman who wanted attention, and they hired someone to go fetch Christina 
out of the forest and bring her back.  He had to break her shinbone to do 
so, but he got her, and her sisters chained her to a wall in their 
house.  But the wound healed, and her chains fell off, and she was 
nourished by breast milk, and even the sisters began to think that 
perhaps Christina wasn't really that crazy.  

	Christina still faced doubts, though, and had a vision in which 
Christ in effect told her to tone down her behavior, because people were 
losing her message by being so distracted by her actions.

	At any rate, it's something to think about.  There's a 
translation of Christina's life by Margot King, in the Matrologia Latina 
series out of Kalamazoo (no, that is not a typo; I'm not referring to 
Migne's Patrologia Latina series!).  For those people who want to slog 
through the Latin, her vita can be found in the AASS (July V, July 24, 
pp. 637-660).  That's the new edition, ed. Pinius, 1868.  THomas 
Cantimpre, the hagiographer, also wrote a supplement to Jacques of 
Vitry's Life of Marie d'Oignies, a Life of Lutgard of Aywieres, and a 
Life of Margaret of Ypres.  Oh, and a Life of John of Cantimpre, and, of 
course, his two major treatises, de bonum universale de apibus and de 
rerum natura.

	Enjoy!

	--Julian of Alney
	Collegium Turris Animarum

From: alfredo1 at aol.com (Alfredo1)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Madness at events
Date: 9 Dec 1994 02:55:03 -0500
Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364)

> On creating a mad character.....
> ...
> 3) You might also want to look at the history of fools and
> jesters.  

Yes.  This is true of everyone, not just those seeking to
create a mad character.  Everyone ought to look at the
history of fools and jesters.  The following discourse
is not meant to replace the research that each of you
should make into this subject, if you ever have to interact
with jesters and/or fools.
The medieval equivalent of committing a family member
to an institution was "to beg him for a fool", which
would make him a ward of the King or some other
noble better able to care for him than the family.
This noble would agree to take this burden because
of the entertainment value.  I recall reading of one
case of a fool who was himself very melancholy
but who provided much merriment by explaining
when asked (as he often was) that he had killed
several people for looking ugly.  (Can you imagine
people in our enlightened day deriving entertainment
from mass murder?)
Such fools were referred to as 'natural' fools, as
opposed to 'artificial' fools who willingly donned
motley to earn a living by their wits.  I think that
this distinction is alluded to in the old song,
"What Kind of Fool Am I?"

Alfredo el Bufon

From: pyotr at chinook.halcyon.com (Peter D. Hampe)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: How to create an insane persona...
Date: 9 Dec 1994 06:49:11 GMT
Organization: Northwest Nexus Inc.
Keywords: nutcase

Greetings from Nikolai Petrovich, 

dmeehan at huey.csun.edu (Dan Meehan) writes:

:In article <3c2n13$3nj at hermes.louisville.edu> cesnyd01 at vulcan.spd.louisville.edu (Cris Snyder) writes:
:>I have a question - I would like to add a second persona, one who is slightly,
:>..um...'not right'.  My question to the NetKnownWorld is this...how would you 
:>handle this?

:1.  Employ frequent lapses of memory.
:2.  Introduce non-sequiturs into conversations.  
:     Choose 2 or 3 non-sequiturs and come up with a way to obsessivly follow
:     each to some horrifying (to you) and banal (to others) conclusion.
:3.  Look dirty. (I would suggest not washing for several days, but this may
:                        be going a little too far!)
:4.  Beg for alms.  Use this as a means of engaging others in the above points.

Reminds me of a "fool" who came to the event.  Had a keeper, but mostly
she cadged food money or drink.  Well, what else is there?  (Heeesh back
there!)
	The screamingly funny story is that in the midst of their
preabulations they met with a woman  who had 'vast tracts of land' and
a low cut peasant blouse.  Fool asks her keeper, pointing "food?", No
fool, no food.
	Drink? she queried brightly?
	No Fool, nothing to drink.
	Money!?
	No Fool, no money.
	No Food, No Money?  It must be empty!  All that and its empty!
And made signs like she was going to climb in and check for herself,
which got a laugh (Fool was barely five foot tall and Keeper was shy Six
himself).

:>I don't have plans on doing anything stupid or dangerous, just weird.  My
:>current persona is kinda flat and boring (reminicent of me) and I think that
:>this would add a bit of spice to things.  I was going to introduce him as my 
:>persona's  twin brother (whom is never around when I am around, and visa versa)

:>I guess the other question is - how did mideval folx deal with others who didn't
:>have all their eggs in one basket.  Did they lock all crazy people up or let
:>them loose if they didn't cause trouble? etc.

Depends on the local depends on the case.  The sort who talked to the
period equivalent of Elvis might be ignored "O tis only mad Tom.",
some got Patronage because while they were Not Quite Right, there was a
certian entertainment value (Standup Comics; Forest Gump are modern
examples.)
	Stark raving loonies got confined or driven out.  If you slew
someone because 'the voices' told you to, you might be first exorsed
but the insanity defense wasn't an option.

One thing for an SCA nutcase - the friendly sort naturally - like being a
clown, it gives you an out.  "That wasn't me, that was the Costume
speaking."

Do your research, and have fun.  Maybe you can get a gig with the local
Tin Hats.  Why be anyones fool when you can be A Royal Fool!

chus
Nikolai Petrovich Flandrovov
Zampollet to the MacFlandrys
Loose Canon, Heavy Metal Opera Company, An Tir.
--
pyotr at halcyon.com  Pyotr Filipivich, sometimes Owl.

From: ayen at access4.digex.net (Doug Ayen)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: How to create an insane persona...
Date: 7 Dec 1994 02:02:10 -0500
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA
Keywords: nutcase

cesnyd01 at vulcan.spd.louisville.edu (Cris Snyder) writes:

>I guess the other question is - how did mideval folx deal with others who didn't
>have all their eggs in one basket.  Did they lock all crazy people up or let
>them loose if they didn't cause trouble? etc.

Depends upon period/local. Some folks considered the insane 
"god-touched", and so fed & housed them. Others locked them up in 
hell-hole type asylums. Still others just killed them. Give us a time 
frame/local, and maybe we can get more specific.

--doug

From: ilaine at panix.com (Liz Stokes)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: How to create an insane persona...
Date: 7 Dec 1994 10:46:35 -0500
Organization: Public Access Internet & UNIX
Keywords: nutcase

 Just get to the quote from cesnyd01 at vulcan.spd.louisville.edu (Cris Snyder), ok?"
>
>I guess the other question is - how did mideval folx deal with others who didn't
>have all their eggs in one basket.  Did they lock all crazy people up or let
>them loose if they didn't cause trouble? etc.
>

	As with everything, it depends on when/where. For Elizabethan, if
your persona had family and enough money they would hire someone to follow
you around and make sure you didn't get into trouble. Sheakspeare deals
with insanity in many of his plays, I took a course on madness in
Renaissance literature and 2/3 of the readings were Sheakspeare. I recall
some theory that he became fascinated with madness because someone he knew
(his father?) lost their mind when he was young. Sheakespeare's mad
characters are very convincing, the nonesense they talk hangs together or
has a train of thought that makes sense in a twisted way. 
	King Lear would be a good place to start for ideas, then Hamlet and
MacBeth. 

-Ilaine
-- 
Liz Stokes         | 		Hey! Where am I going? 
Ilaine de Cameron  | 
                   |    And what am I doing in this handbasket?	
ilaine at panix.com   | 

From: nuksbab at oak.grove.iup.edu
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: How to create an insane persona...
Date: 8 Dec 1994 02:20:08 GMT
Organization: Indiana U of Pennsylvania

In article <3c2n13$3nj at hermes.louisville.edu>, cesnyd01 at vulcan.spd.louisville.edu (Cris Snyder) writes:
>>
>I guess the other question is - how did mideval folx deal with others who didn't
>have all their eggs in one basket.  Did they lock all crazy people up or let
>them loose if they didn't cause trouble? etc.
>

Incidentally, I've done a bit of research on this subject (some people have too
much free time and all that....)  one of the better books that i've found is
called "Madness and Civilization" by Michel Foucault.  Hes a post-
structuralist/deconstructionist/historian writer. (If you're into this sort of
thing, you know what i mean...  With out sounding like a book review, let me
say this, he covers period dealings with the insane in a rather well done
format......(ie:  DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH :)  )     Just a sugg. 

-   Colgrim

From: HAROLD.FELD at hq.doe.GOV
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Madness at events
Date: 8 Dec 1994 10:27:49 -0500
Organization: The Internet

Unto all who read these words, greetings from Yaakov.

On creating a mad character.....

1) On thing that might be helpful is looking up some current texts on
mental disease to determine what sort of 'madness' you want to recreate.
Contrary to popular belief, mental illness doesn't genreally involve
going around shouting random jibberish at the top of your longs.  Many
metal illnesses are marked by particular behavior patterns (for example:
what Therica described about constantly twisting the apron and
snivelling).

2) Some of the things we now recognize and define as mental illnesses
would not necessarily be viewed as illnesses then, because they would
not be defined as illness.  For example- obsessive/compulsive behavior
or addictive behavior.  If you gambled or drank you weren't 'sick',
you were sinful.  (I wonder if Turrets is a period disease?)

3) You might also want to look at the history of fools and
jesters.  

4) It is important to distinguish between various forms of mental
illness and being 'simple'.

5) An important question, it seems to me, is *why* do a 'mad' persona?
What element of it do you find attractive?  I find the challenge of
creating a medieval character sufficiently difficult that trying
to create one who is mad strikes me as rather daunting.  There is
also the problem that if you engage in behavior which is outside the
norm, unless you have a number of shills to clue people in, you
are going to put a fair number of folks off.  Are you attracted to raving
lunies who panhandle for change?  There is a guy outside the building
where I work who carries on a continuous monolog.  It is clear he thinks
he is talking to someone, as his voice rises and falls, changes subject
in response to 'statements' or 'questions', etc.  You don't find 
people hanging around him and thinking this is a fun guy to take
to lunch.

Yaakov

From: nielsen at boba.mayo.EDU (Ann Nielsen)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Madness at Events"
Date: 7 Dec 1994 21:05:13 -0500
Organization: The Internet

Greetings unto those on the Rialto from Lady Therica!

Haven't had a chance to post in ages, but the current mini-thread on 'mad'
personas reminded me of two --- one done by a friend of mine, and one by me.

My friend, a very serious and usually solemn person (well, at least until
you get to know her!) created a persona for a camping event. The new persona
was 'Malkin', and she was rather simple. Malkin took *everything* you said
literally, much to the amusement of others. Thus, you had to be v-e-r-y
careful of what you said to her, because otherwise you might end up with
something quite different than what you had anticipated. (It's been many
years now and darn if I can't remember an example! But trust me on this one!)

Malkin got her 'simpleness' across in a number of ways. One: she was always
sniffing. Long, deep sniffles that needed the raking of the sleeve across the
nose to silence. Two: she constantly twisted her apron corner. Three: she
spoke haltingly, often repeating what you had said with a tilted head and
a quizzical look on her face (meaning: Rephrase your command quickly because
she was thinking of mischief!) Four: she would 'round' her eyes and open her
mouth slightly at the least cause (often called the 'tv-look'). Five: She
was delighted with the simplest things ("Look! A flower! Look at the flower!"
while tugging at your sleeve emphatically to come with her to look at a
dandelion) and would insist you share it with her. There were other ways,
but these come quickly to mind. Malkin, being that she was simple, was a
lowly servant, and it was her duty to wait on everyone. Which she did, with-
out question. Often with hilarious results.

I created a persona for a murder event our Shire hosted a number of years ago.
Daphne was the 'typical' blonde --- sweet and light and determined to mis-
understand *everything* you said to her. How else was she to survive living
with her 80 year old husband whose first two (or was it three?) wives had
died under mysterious circumstances? An example: at one point in the beginning
of the day, we were welcoming our guests. Suddenly, the King's tax collector
appeared. Daphne, being Daphne, welcomed him graciously and happily, enjoining
him to go wherever he would like and do whatever he wished. Her husband's
only daughter (and evil, to boot!) pulled Daphne aside. "Daphne!" she hissed
loudly enough so all on-lookers could hear. "That's the King's Tax Collector!
What if he decides to look at Father's books and finds something --- irreg-
ular?!"

Daphne, being Daphe, looked at her with wide, innocent eyes. "Poor thing,"
she said sympathetically. "If he ate more prunes, he wouldn't be irregular."
There was a stunned pause, and then the onlookers burst out laughing. Margaret
(Daphne's stepdaughter) had all she could do to choke back her laughter and
got past it by glaring at me. Furiously. ;-)

My suggestion is to select what kind of character you would like to portray.
Pick a few easily remembered mannerisms that aren't common (such as Malkin's
exaggerated nose-wiping with her sleeve or her apron twisting, or Daphne's
assumption that *everyone* is made of goodness and light and means no harm
to anyone) and practice them constantly throughout the day. Malkin had a good
master, so her garb was plain, but neatly mended and clean. Daphne was dressed
to the hilt in Elizabethan (there's *got* to be something good in being married
to a rich, ornery old man, right?). Whatever you choose, be consistent ---
but most of all, have fun!

Therica
--'--,--{ at 
         *******************************************************
         *             Ann Nielsen     --'--,--{ at               *         
         *              nielsen at falcon.mayo.edu                *
         *              SPPDG   Mayo Foundation                *
         *                Rochester, MN 55905                  *
         *******************************************************

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
From: tccg at netcom.com (Tim McDaniel and Other Users)
Subject: Re: How to create an insane persona...
Keywords: nutcase
Date: Sat, 17 Dec 1994 07:24:41 GMT

In article <3c8ul7$pbp at news.halcyon.com>,
Peter D. Hampe <pyotr at chinook.halcyon.com> wrote:
>Greetings from Nikolai Petrovich, who says he only does what the his
>rice crispies tell him.... oh no! I missed my breakfast this Morning!
...
>	Stark raving loonies got confined or driven out.  If you slew
>someone because 'the voices' told you to, you might be first exorsed
>but the insanity defense wasn't an option.

I believe this is not the case in some times and places.

The local Steppes Collegium had a professor give a talk a few months
ago, and she spoke on (as I recall) medieval crime and punishment.  She
mentioned several cases and precedents in England.  Frenzy -- temporary
insanity -- was a defence; an example I recall is a woman who mistook
her returning husband for a bear coming in the door and slew him, and
was let off.  Post-partum depression was also a defence; the example
was a woman who slew her child several months after birth, and was let
off.

She mentioned one case at more length.  A man was walking home one day
with friends when he sudenly tried to drown himself in a pond.  His
friends got him out and escorted him home.  The neighbors heard a
commotion and broke into the house, to find that the man had killed his
wife and children and was trying to kill himself.  Years later, a king
(Henry IV, perhaps?) wrote to the shire court, asking why the man was
still imprisoned -- a sort of "quo warranto", implying that the proper
thing to do was to let him go.  The sherrif replied that, although the
man was usually peaceful, especially during the summer, his bouts of
insanity were frequent enough, violent enough, and unpredictable enough
that the local community felt it had no choice but to keep him confined.

I'm sorry that I don't remember more details and sources; no doubt I've
gotten things wrong.  If you're truly interested in this subject, e-mail
me and I'll track down the professor that you might talk with her.

My vague impression is that the concept of mercy was prominent in the
Middle Ages.  True, some punishments were hideous, but rebels and
criminals were pardoned with some frequency.  Didn't some kingdoms have
the custom of pardoning all criminals on the accession of a new king?
The idea of mercy, I suppose, is related to the "forgive me my
tresspasses, as I forgive those who tresspass against me" clause in the
Paternoster; we're all sinners drawn to sin, so I should be forgiving,
since I will need forgiveness sooner or later.
-- 
Daniel de Lincoln, Steppes, Ansteorra
Tim McDaniel
Dallas, TX 

From: Antoinette of Lapland <gemartt at earthlink.net>
Date: January 28, 2008 8:20:07 PM CST
To: Bryn Gwlad <bryn-gwlad at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: [Bryn-gwlad] Madness takes its toll . . .

I've asked myself to provide some potent quotes.  

                    A

No excellent soul is exempt from a little madness.

     - Aristotle

For to see my Tom of Bedlam, 10,000 miles I'd travel 
Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes, to save her shoes from gravel.
Still I sing bonnie boys, bonnie mad boys, 
Bedlam boys are bonnie
For they all go bare and they live by the air, 
And they want no drink nor money.

      Old English Folk Song

O, matter and impertinency mixed, 
reason in madness. 

     - Shakespeare

Aaah-ah yawa em ekat ot gnimoc er'yeht dnA
seot dna sbmuht rieht elddiwt dnA
elims dna tis ohw srevaew teksab dnA
sdrib gniprihc dna srewolf dna seert htiw emoh yppah eht oT

     - Napolean XIV

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