Mother Shipton
Ursula Southeil (c. 1488 – 1561; also variously spelt as Ursula Southill, Ursula Soothtell or Ursula Sontheil), popularly known as Mother Shipton, was an English soothsayer and prophetess according to English folklore.
Mother Shipton | |
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An 1804 portrait of Shipton with a monkey or familiar, taken from an oil painting dating from at least a century earlier | |
| Born | Ursula Southeil c. 1488 Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, England |
| Died | 1561 (aged 72–73) |
| Other names | Ursula Soothtell, Ursula Sontheil |
| Occupation(s) | Fortune-teller, prophetess |
She has sometimes been described as a witch and is associated with folklore involving the origin of the Rollright Stones of Oxfordshire, reportedly a king and his men transformed to stone after failing her test. William Camden reported an account of this in a rhyming version in 1610.
The first known edition of her prophecies was printed in 1641, eighty years after her reported death. This timing suggests that what was published was a legendary or mythical account. It contained numerous mainly regional predictions and only two prophetic verses.
One of the most notable editions of her prophecies was published in 1684. It gave her birthplace as Knaresborough, Yorkshire, in a cave now known as Mother Shipton's Cave. The book reputed Shipton to be hideously ugly, and that she had married Toby Shipton, a local carpenter, near York in 1512, and told fortunes and made predictions throughout her life.