Mother Shipton's Prophecy

Mother Shipton (ca. 1488-1561), whose given name was Ursula Southeil, was apparently a real person who had a reputation as a witch or seeress. The first known edition of her prophecies was printed in 1641, 80 years after her death. It contained numerous, mainly regional predictions. A 1684 edition gave her birthplace as Knaresborough, Yorkshire, England, in a cave known as Mother Shipton's Cave, now operated as a tourist attraction (and which publishes postcards like this).

The most famous claimed edition of Mother Shipton's prophecies foretells many modern events and phenomena, but the language is not from the 16th century. One part of her prophecy is: “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.” However, this version was not published until 1862. More than a decade later, its true author, Charles Hindley, admitted in print that he had created a fictional manuscript.

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.