Mother Shipton

Ursula Southeil, otherwise known as Mother Shipton, became popular in 1641, eighty years after her death, when her publication of soothsays and prophecies was brought into light. Of her most notable prophecies, which was published in 1684, stated that she was notoriously ugly. The women who gave birth to her spoke of a smell of sulfur and a large booming sound of thunder as the new child entered the world. In any circumstance, this is usually not a good sign. The text goes on to explain that the baby was born misshapen and large, with some believing that her father, who was not in the picture, was the devil himself. At the age of only two years old, her mother abandoned her.

From an early age, Mother Shipton displayed psychic abilities, writing prophecies in the many different forms, largely poems. The legend she embodied was passed on through oral traditions, and is perhaps not entirely true. Although, many of her visions came true during her lifetime, such as the Great Fire of London in 1666, the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, and even the creation of modern technology. What is often see as her most bizarre prediction is the fact that she knew when she would die. 

However, not everything Mother Shipton predicted came true. The most famous of her predictions was that the world would end in 1881, yet, in 2021 we are still trucking along. Some accounts of her paint her as a witch, given that she was the byproduct of a prostitute mother and a devilish father. 

It is widely known now that Mother Shipton was mainly a myth, and that many of her prophecies were composed by outsiders after she passed. Her prophecies did not appear until Richard Head published a book in 1641, which he later admitted to inventing most of Mother Shipton's biographical details. Despite this, many fortune tellers today know of Mother Shipton and some even depict her as the original clairvoyant. 

Below is a problem presumably written by Mother Shipton, found on the out wrapping of Scrolls: 

I know I go - I know I'm free

I know that this will come to be.

Secreted this - for this will be

Found by later dynasty

A dairy maid, a bonny lass

Shall kick this stone as she does pass

And five generations she shall breed

Before one male child does learn to read.

This is then held year by year

Till an iron monster trembling fear

eats parchment, words and quill and ink

And mankind is given time to think.

And only when this comes to be

Will mankind read this prophecy

But one mans sweets anothers bane

So I shall not have burned in vain.