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Mother Shipton is the most famous prophetess of the British Isles. She is one of the many figures of romance who achieve widespread fame and notoriety many years after the real exploits of their lives have faded from the pages of history. With such a passage of time, and lack of historical evidence, there is even debate as to whether she existed at all. Many of her prophecies are undoubtedly later fabrications, and the first written accounts of her exploits were published eighty years after her supposed death.
Whatever the truth she has been a fertile source of folklore and myth down through the centuries.
In this short essay we will examine in brief the legend of her life and then look at some of her alleged prophecies and their likely origin.
Her Legendary Life
The first stories about Mother Shipton appear in chapbooks from the mid seventeenth century, and a basic story of her life can be summarised as follows:
Mother Shipton was born in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, in 1488 as Ursula Southheil to a poor single mother. According to tradition her mother had been seduced out of wedlock and died during her birth. Her birthplace has been identified as the cave by the river Nidd, which bears her name. Another place associated with her is the nearby dropping well, where the limestone rich waters have the power of turning objects to stone. The cave and the well were probably 'religious' places long before her alleged birth, and may have become associated with her as her legend grew.
Ursula was not a pretty baby by any stretch of the imagination in fact she was hideous to behold, and it was difficult to find a nurse to care for her. Eventually a woman who lived on the outskirts of Knaresborough agreed to be her foster mother.
Strange happenings were reported throughout her childhood, furniture reportedly moved around the house of its own violation, plates and crockery were said to fly around the room, and her powers of prophesy were evident at an early age.
Many stories were told of her childhood, one morning the young baby and her crib were found to be missing from the house. Several villagers were brought into her home to search for clues to her disappearance, and were attacked by supernatural forces and pricked by imps in the form of monkeys. Eventually after some of the neighbours were thrown around the room attached to a yolk, Ursula was discovered in her crib hanging in mid air half way up the chimney.
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As she grew into adulthood her inborn ugliness did not improve and descriptions of her visage paint a particularly ugly figure, her nose was sight to be seen in itself being "of improportional length with many crooks and turnings.......her stature was larger than common, her body crooked and her face frightful", she had great goggling eyes and her wreck of a nose also gave off a faint luminosity.
However, her hideous appearance did not stop her from finding a suitable husband and Ursula was married at the age of 24 to Toby Shipton - a carpenter from Shipton. They set up home in Knaresborough, which became a magnet for people far and wide in search of her words of wisdom and prophetic powers. Her fame soon spread and she became known as Mother Shipton.
Mother Shipton was thought to have died in 1561, and event that she prophesised.
Her Prophesies
She is said to have prophesised many things during her lifetime, including the Civil War, the dissolution of the monasteries, and the defeat of the Spanish Armada. However, many of the rhymes are obscure and like many obscure riddles - such as those of Nostradamus - can be moulded to fit a number of events.
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Mother Shipton