Mother Shipton

Mother Shipton, born Ursula Sontheil, was born in the year 1488 to the 15-year-old Agatha Soothtale in a cave in North Yorkshire outside of the town Knaresborough. The earliest sources of the legends of her birth and life were collected in 1667[7] by author and biographer Richard Head and later by J. Conyers in 1686.[1]

Both the sources in 1667 and 1686 say she was born during a violent thunderstorm. Massive, deformed, and ugly with a hunchback and bulging eyes. As she was born she didn't cry but cackled, and as she did the previously raging storms ceased.[1] They also say Ursula's mother Agatha was a poor and desolate orphan, left at fifteen with no means to support herself. In her starving state she met and fell victim to the charms of the Devil which resulted in an affair, and the birth of Ursula.[7] Variations of this legend claim Agatha herself was a witch and summoned the Devil to conceive a child

The true origin of Ursula's father is unknown and Agatha refused to reveal him. At one point she was forcibly brought before the local magistrate, but still she refused.[8] The scandalous nature of Agatha's life and Ursula's birth meant the two were ostracized from society and forced to live alone, in the same cave Ursula was born, for the first two years of Ursula's life.[9] Rumors Agatha was a witch and Ursula the spawn of Satan were perpetuated because this cave was known to contain a skull shaped pool which turned things to stone.[10] The cave is known today as Mother Shipton's Cave and to this day still turns things to stone.

According to 17th century sources after two years living alone in the Forest of Knaresborough the Abbot of Beverley intervened. The Abbot removed them from the cave and secured Agatha a place in the Convent of the order of St. Bridget,[1] in Nottinghamshire,[9]  and Ursula a foster family in Knaresborough. Agatha and Ursula never see each other again.

Developed from contemporary descriptions and depictions of her, it is likely Ursula had a large crooked nose and suffered from a hunchback and crooked legs. Physical differences acted as a visual reminder of the secretive events of her birth and the townspeople never forgot. She found acceptance with her foster family and a few friends, but Ursula was ultimately ostracized from the larger portion of people in town. She found sanctuary in the woods like her mother had and spent most of her childhood learning of plants and herbs and the medicinal properties of them.[11]

As Ursula grew as did her knowledge of plants and herbs and she became an invaluable resource for the townspeople as an herbalist. The respect she earned from her work gave her the opportunity to expand her social circle and it was then she met the local carpenter[1] Toby Shipton.[12]

When Ursula was 24 years old she and Toby Shipton were married.[12] From this point on Ursula adopted her husband's surname and became Mother Shipton.The people in town were shocked at their union and whispered of how he must have been bewitched to marry her.

About a month into her marriage a neighbour came to the door and asked for her help, saying she had left her door open and a thief had come in and stole a new smock and petticoat. Without hesitation Mother Shipton calmed her neighbor and said she knew exactly who stole the clothing and would retrieve it the next day. The next morning Mother Shipton and her neighbor went to the Market-cross. The woman who had stolen the clothing couldn't stop herself from putting the smock on over her clothes, the petticoat in her hand, and marching through town. When she arrived at the Market-cross she began dancing and danced straight for Mother Shipton and her neighbor all the while singing,

"I stole my Neighbours Smock and Coat, I am a Thief, and here I show't."[1]

When she arrived at Mother Shipton she took off the smock, handed it over, curtsied, and left.

Tragically only two years later in 1512, Toby Shipton died. Mother Shipton was widowed with the town insisting she must have been responsible for his death. The grief of losing her husband and the harsh words of the town prompted Ursula Shipton to move into the woods and the same cave she had been born in for peace. Here she continued to create potions and herbal remedies for people and probably casted spells as well.

Mother Shipton's name slowly became more and more well known. People would travel far distances to come and see her and receive potions and spells from the mysterious soothsayer Mother Shipton.

As her popularity grew she grew bolder and revealed she could see the future and began to prophesy. She started with smaller prophecies involving her town and the people within, but as her prophecies kept coming true she started telling prophecies about the monarchy and the future of the world. In 1537 King Henry VIII wrote a letter to the Duke of Norfolk where he refers to a "witch of York."[12] This reference leads us to believe that Mother Shipton became so famous the King of England not only knew of her, but referenced her.

Prophecy of the end of times

Mother Shipton's house

The most famous claimed edition of Mother Shipton's prophecies foretells many modern events and phenomena. Widely quoted today as if it were the original, it contains over a hundred prophetic rhymed couplets. But the language is notably non-16th-century. This edition includes the now-famous lines:

The world to an end shall come
In eighteen hundred and eighty one.[15]

This version was not published until 1862. More than a decade later, its true author, Charles Hindley, admitted in print that he had created the manuscript.[16]

This fictional prophecy was published over the years with different dates and in (or about) several countries. The booklet The Life and Prophecies of Ursula Sontheil better known as Mother Shipton (1920s, and repeatedly reprinted)[17] predicted the world would end in 1991.[18][19] (In the late 1970s, many news articles were published about Mother Shipton and her prophecy that the world would end - these accounts said it would occur in 1981).

Among other well-known lines from Hindley's fictional version (often quoted as if they were original) are:

A Carriage without a horse shall go;
Disaster fill the world with woe...
In water iron then shall float,
As easy as a wooden boat.[15]

Based on contemporary references to her and countless resources detailing the events of her life, historians believe Mother Shipton was a real woman,[12][14][8] born in 1488 to an orphan fifteen-year-old girl named Agatha Soothtale in a cave in North Yorkshire outside of the town Knaresborough[12][14][8]. Based on how every contemporary record of her from the time references her appearance, she probably suffered from a hunchback and a large crooked nose, although much else regarding her appearance is conjecture. She made potions, herbal remedies, casted spells, and prophesied of the future.

In reference to her existence, in 1537 Yorkshire, while Catholic people were rebelling against the dissolution of Catholic monasteries, Henry VIII wrote a letter to the Duke of Norfolk where he refers to a "witch of York."[12]  It is believed that this letter is the earliest reference to the real Mother Shipton who would have been prophesying about Henry VII at this time. In 1666 Samuel Pepys recorded in his diaries that, whilst surveying the damage to London caused by the 1666 Great Fire in the company of the Royal Family, he heard them discuss Mother Shipton's prophecy of the event.[20]

The earliest account of Mother Shipton's prophecies was published in 1641, eighty years after her death. The story is, the document of Mother Shipton's life was recorded by a young girl named Joanne Walker[9] who heard the story as a young girl and transcribed it as Mother Shipton spoke of her life. Mother Shipton never wrote anything down or published anything during her lifetime so there is no way of knowing what she actually said or did.

The cave where she lived is known as England's oldest tourist attraction and for hundreds of years people have trekked to see the cave where she was born. This cave's water has a mineral content so high anything placed in the pool will slowly be covered in layers of stone. Tourists will place items in the pool to later return and see it turned to stone. It is assumed that many of her prophecies were never written down, and many legends and prophecies accredited to her were created after her death to enhance the folk legend she had become.

A Mother Shipton moth, with hag-like markings on its wings

The figure of Mother Shipton accumulated considerable folklore and legendary status. Her name became associated with many tragic events and strange goings-on recorded in the UK, North America, and Australia throughout the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Many fortune tellers used her effigy and statue, presumably for purposes of association marketing. Many English pubs were named after her. Only two survive, one near her purported birthplace in Knaresborough and the other in Portsmouth. The latter has a statue of her above the door.

A caricature of Mother Shipton was used in early pantomime. Historians believe this figure may have been the forerunner of the Panto dame.

The Mother Shipton moth (Callistege mi) is named after her. Each wing's pattern resembles a hag's head in profile.

A fundraising campaign was started in 2013 to raise £35,000 to erect a statue of Shipton in Knaresborough. Completed in October 2017, the statue sits on a bench in the town's Market Square close to a statue of John Metcalf, an 18th-century road engineer known as Blind Jack.[21]

Mother Shipton is referred to in Daniel Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year (1772), referring to the year 1665, when the bubonic plague erupted in London:

"These terrors and apprehensions of the people led them into a thousand weak, foolish, and wicked things, which they wanted not a sort of people really wicked to encourage them to: and this was running about to fortune-tellers, cunning-men, and astrologers to know their fortune, or, as it is vulgarly expressed, to have their fortunes told them, their nativities calculated, and the like.... And this trade grew so open and so generally practised that it became common to have signs and inscriptions set up at doors: 'Here lives a fortune-teller', 'Here lives an astrologer', 'Here you may have your nativity calculated', and the like; and Friar Bacon's brazen-head, which was the usual sign of these people's dwellings, was to be seen almost in every street, or else the sign of Mother Shipton...."[22]

• 2012 Doomsday prediction

• Media related to Mother Shipton at Wikimedia Commons
• Works written by or about Mother Shipton at Wikisource
• Mother Shipton's Cave and Dropping Well
• Mother Shipton, Her Life and Prophecies, Mysterious Britain & Ireland