MOTHER SHIPTON

Ian
I read some prophesies recently by a woman called Mother Shipton. Who was she? Thanks G.M. by e-mail

Reply
Mother Shipton was born Ursula Sontheil in 1488 in a cave beside the river Nidd in North Yorkshire, England. Mother Shipton exhibited prophetic and psychic abilities from an early age. Many feared her and her mystical powers, although she only used them for the greater good. She wrote her prophecies about events to come in the form of poems and her power to see into the future has made her well known around the world. Her legend was passed on through oral traditions and sometimes embellished a bit. Since 1641 there have been more than 50 different editions of books about her and her prophecies. Many of her visions came true within her own lifetime and in subsequent centuries.

Mother Shipton predicted important historical events many years ahead of their time - the Great Fire of London in 1666, the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 - as well as the advent of modern technology. She even forecast her own death in 1561. Today her prophecies are still proving uncannily accurate. Her poems tend to be very dark and some might say, depressing things about environmental disasters. Here are some lines.

PROPHECIES
Through towering hills proud men shall ride
No horse or ass move by his side.
Beneath the water, men shall walk
Shall ride, shall sleep, shall even talk.
And in the air men shall be seen
In white and black and even green
A carriage without horse will go
Around the world men's thoughts will fly
Quick as the twinkling of an eye.
And water shall great wonders do
How strange. And yet it shall come true.

For in those wondrous far off days
The women shall adopt a craze
To dress like men, and trousers wear
And to cut off their locks of hair
They'll ride astride with brazen brow
As witches do on broomstick now.

And roaring monsters with man atop
Does seem to eat the verdant crop
And men shall fly as birds do now
And give away the horse and plough.

It is now generally acknowledged that Mother Shipton was largely a myth, and that others composed many of her prophecies after her death, and after the events they 'predicted'. Her prophecies were apparently recorded in a series of diaries but the first published book of her work did not appear until 1641 and the most noted work, by Richard Head, came out in 1684. Head later admitted to inventing almost all Shipton's biographical details. It does make very interesting reading though nevertheless.

Environmental.